


The Opposite of Fall

by jcrowquill



Series: Spare the Angels [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry Castiel, Canon Divergent, Castiel's True Form, Charlie Ships It, Emotional Sex, Gen, Hiatus, M/M, Season 9, Sick Castiel, Temporary Character Death, Wishful Thinking, a little bit of wtf, all angels just want their dad, alternate ending to season 9, angel trials, closing up hell, dean faces the consequences for secrets, dean learns about the pitfalls of manly stoicism, flipping the fuck out dean, headcanon building, kevin is badass, light descriptions of gore, more angelic possession, non-human psychology, painful confessions, permanent character death (minor character), strange forms of love, the winchesters hug it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 23:52:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 69,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jcrowquill/pseuds/jcrowquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following Sam's seemingly permanent exit from the Men of Letters' bunker, Dean and Castiel are left to pick up the pieces.  However, as angels, demons, allies, and enemies alike push toward their goals, it becomes apparent that the world is starting to come apart at the seams.  It's the end of times, again, only no one realizes it yet.</p><p>(Immediately follows 9:9 Holy Terror.  Spoilers for all seasons.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shatter

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just writing this to get through the hiatus. I assume that I can bring it to a comfortable ending point before the season resumes in January. Everything I'm writing is canon compliant, but I don't imagine that it'll stay that way once things start up. A lot of this is very self-indulgent - it's all stuff that I want to see in the show, but don't actually expect. 
> 
> I'm going to try to update daily, or at least a few times a week.

**Cas, oh please - god - Cas, fuck, please**  
  
Prayer is heard through a sense that isn’t analogous to any human experience; the newly re-graced angel of Thursdays feels it glowing through his consciousness like radiating warmth.  The voice in his thoughts is hushed and fervent, directionless and pleading, slowly growing in heat and intensity as the human on the other end realizes more and more complex layers of anguish.  To Castiel, it feels as though a hot brand is being pressed harder and harder between his shoulders.  
  
 **Cas, fucking oh GOD Cas** **CAS**  
  
He doesn’t hesitate.  Despite being unable to feel either of the Winchesters, he has learned to sense the location of their transport.  He can feel the solid weight of the Impala against the concrete floor of the Men of Letters’ garage, even through the layers of warding.  A piece of heart is sewn into the leather and etched into the undercarriage; it isn’t a literal bond, but belief makes it strong enough to catch on and pull himself through the tiny seams between moments.  
  
When he arrives at the bunker, the earth has hardly spun a fraction of a degree on its axis.  Hardly a moment has passed, but his recently human heart clenches painfully deep within his vessel’s chest.    
  
It’s a several minutes before Dean answers the pounding on the door.  Cas recognizes a naked vulnerability as he realizes that the hunter would have opened the door for anyone, knowing a friend would comfort him and a foe would strike him down and bring an end to his misery.  As it stands, faced with his only ally, the elder Winchester nearly collapses into his arms.  
  
Castiel isn’t the comforting type.  Angels don’t comfort, not really; they guard, they reason, they smite.  This angel is warmer, the lines of his body less rigid, and he knows compassion even though its application is graceless and occasionally sharp. He knows Dean and, in a broadly defined, celestially complicated way, loves him; his arms curve around the almost-limp hunter as he drags him back inside.  
  
Dean is mumbling, his words slurred and insensible, as he holds tightly to his friend and sometimes lover.  He presses his face into the curve of the angel’s neck and his cheeks are wet.  The angel has seen him cry before and recognizes it not as weakness, but the breaking point of strength.  A dozen uncomforting admonitions rise to his lips as he picks out words from Dean’s continuous, incomprehensible stream of explanation.  Sam, Kevin, Ezekiel.  Gone, dead, fuck.  
  
There isn’t a lot that he can say, and he feels a strange, sharp sorrow as he looks past the vestibule to where a dark-haired body lies sprawled on the floor, his eyes smoking slightly.  His pain is different from Dean’s and simultaneously encompasses many concepts and many layers of separation; where he could have once freely traveled to heaven, he is now barred and Kevin is as lost to him as he is to Dean.  
  
He brings his hand up to press Dean’s head against his shoulder and his voice is quiet and level.  It isn’t comforting, except in its consistency; it is the same rough, nasal monotone that Dean has always known.  
  
“I’m here.  Take a breath, Dean.”

  
  
\-------------------

  
  
He is happy.  It’s the first time in a long time, but in this moment, Kevin Tran is curled up on the sofa beside his mother with a warm bowl of supper perched on his lap and he is _happy_.  
  
It’s spring and it’s wet outside, cold and rather miserable.  Inside, however, the mood is comfortable.  His mom has made a spicy dish that warms him right up and she has  temporarily waived the “dinner must be consumed at the table” rule.  He knows that it’s because she’s much happier cuddled up under a blanket, tucked into the right angle created by the arm and back of the sofa, but he'll take it.  He can see that one of her slippered feet is peeking out from under the chenille blanket, and he absently reaches over to tug it down to cover.    
  
It’s natural, the two of them, and he feels for the first time in just about forever that _Everything is fine.  It’s fine that Dad’s not here_.  She doesn’t talk about him often anymore, and when she does she doesn’t sound quite so melancholy.  She told him once that sometimes we only have the best things for a little while, but his father had given her more than she could ever need to be happy.  Kevin knows that she means him and the realization makes him feel both pressured and adored.  
  
But right now, he’s happy.  This is normal, and normal feels so good that it’s incredible.  
  
She chats idly about the program they’re watching - some procedural cop drama that she likes, one of what his dad had jokingly called her “murder soaps” - and he nods along, thinking already about the weekend.  His mother asks him if he’s figured out who the murderer is yet, and he shakes his head.  She smiles knowingly, nodding and tapping the tip of her nose, telling him that he just needs to pay attention.  
  
He hears the rain dripping from the gutter and realizes that somewhere along the line it must be clogged with leaves.  He’s already thinking about how his petite mother, whom he just recently inched past in height, would soon be up on a ladder with her garden gloves to dredge out the heavy, moldering vegetation.  Maybe she would let him do it for her.  He sighs lightly, comfortably, and tucks his legs up while he sips his warm bowl of soup.  
  
It’s so normal and he’s so comfortable.  Normal, normal, normal.  He didn’t remember when he cared so much about normal before.  He could fall asleep.  
  
In the soft incandescent light cast by the shaker lamp on the end table, his mom looks younger and her dark hair is smooth like silk.  She's really beautiful.  For a moment, he sees her as he did as a child, and for a split second he pictures her fierce, older.  A tiger among women.  
  
The second image is strange and slightly jarring.  It feels out of place, though he can’t figure out why.  
  
He yawns lazily and rests his cheek against the couch cushion for a moment.  He feels like he’s seen this one before, but he knows that he hasn’t.  It’s a new episode.  But he feels the plot twist coming, knows who’s going to be outed as the opportunist killer on the forensic staff, and he already knows how he’ll laugh at his mother saying she knew it all along.  
  
“I think we’ve seen this one…” he muses.  
  
His mom replies, but her response doesn’t seem to suit what he’d said.  It's more like she replied to something else entirely.  
  
It isn’t just predictable writing, he realizes.  And even if it were, a twelve year old likely wouldn’t have picked up on that kind of foreshadowing or those details.  He feels much older, smarter, than he should for being the stick-limbed middle schooler camped out on the couch with his mom.  Of course, all kids think they’re more mature than they are.  But this is different.  This is displaced.  
  
“Mom?”  
  
She doesn’t seem to hear him for a moment.    
  
 _Sometimes we only have the best things for a little while._  
  
“Mom,” he says again, his smooth brow furrowing, “I don’t think this is real.”

  
  
\----------------------------------

  
  
Cas takes Kevin’s body to the bedroom he had been occupying and rests it gently on the carefully made bed.  It strikes him that Kevin will never tuck those corners in again and it is as monumental as the realization that the Ascension Night Heron was extinct.  He isn’t shaking, but he feels unsteady with sudden grief as he pulls a blanket over him, covering his slack face and his burned-out eyes.  It’s easier once that’s done; it is less horrific, less permanent, less unfair.    
  
When he rejoins Dean, the elder Winchester has regained a certain degree of control over himself.  His breathing is still shallow, but he’s remembered himself enough to scrabble for purchase on the slope of Mt. Manly; he is rubbing at his eyes and clearing his throat, trying to think of a quippy rejoinder that would somehow rebuild the cardboard facade that he is all right.  He needs to be all right.  If he is all right, then _this_ would be all right.  Nothing could stay horrible while Dean Winchester walked the Earth.  
  
The angel drops to a crouch in front of the chair where he’s sitting, putting himself on eye level.  Emotion, even after experiencing it as a human, is still difficult for him; subtlety is difficult to decipher.  Fortunately, in this situation Dean is completely lacking nuance. There are obviously many emotions at war within him, but only a few that Castiel is in any position to address.  
  
“So,” Dean begins gruffly, “You can’t just… mojo him back?”  
  
Cas shakes his head once, “No.  He was smote by an angel of epic grace.  An old angel; one of the oldest.”  
  
Dean presses his soft mouth and casts his eyes upward for a moment.  The tremble that would have been in his lips is transferred to his jaw and the tip of his slightly pink nose.  Cas recognizes that his hunter is manfully attempting to control his emotions, and not for the first time reflects on how hideously sorrow contorts the human face.  In this moment, Dean is not beautiful, though he can feel the heat of his luminous soul as it quakes in anguish.  That is, in its raw depth, beautiful.  
  
He feels a twinge of pain in response.  
  
“So, what then -  Kevin’s just.  Dead?”  
  
“With my own grace, maybe I--”  
  
“You don’t _have_ your grace.  I don’t know how we _get_ your grace.  That is if it’s even a thing that exists anymore.”  
  
Cas sighed quietly, “Dean, when we restore heaven and the angels, I will have to--”  
  
An involuntary, abortive sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob bursts forth unbidden from Dean’s mouth.  Oh, perfect. Something else he hasn’t told Cas.    
  
“There’s no way to get back into heaven.”  
  
“We will reverse the spell.”  
  
“You -- can’t,” the hunter said with some effort, “It’s irreversible.”  
  
Castiel stares at him mutely, and again, the question is not actually a question.  
  
“What.”  
  
“It’s irreversible.  Crowley helped Kevin translate the tablet.”  
  
Inside the still, unmoving human body, the angelic beast rears back and bellows.  There’s no sound discernible on this plane, but anguish and outright fury resound in the harsh, broken wail.  It can’t be undone; another horror commited in his blood-drenched name that can’t be taken back.  The angel Castiel’s many slightly disfigured wings snap open as though he is preparing to take flight and vanish permanently from Dean’s mortal existence.  For an instant, it is only the warding on the bunker that keeps him tethered to the ground.  
  
Outwardly, the slope-shouldered vessel barely reacts.  His full mouth tightens and his brows draw down.  His dark eyes narrow slightly as they focus in on Dean, specifically the slightly darker, browner ring around his irises.  
  
“How long have you known?”  
  
“Awhile.  Awhile, okay?” Dean says, looking away.  Castiel’s intensity, particularly narrowed in so tightly on him, is impossible to stare down.  He could stare down Michael and Lucifer at the same time, but his personal angel’s penetrating stare is more than he is able to endure.  He drops his gaze to the hardwood floor, wanting to pretend that there was something extremely interesting down there but only succeeding in looking shamed.  
  
Castiel’s eyes trace the lines of Dean’s eyelashes.  For a moment, he is simultaneously so angry, wounded, and desperate that he feels like he could actually kill the man before him.  The man for whom he defied heaven, fell from grace, and killed a thousand angels.  He almost smolders within his vessel, his heavenly consciousness crackling.  
  
Dean feels the hairs on the backs of his arms prickle uncomfortably and rubs his hands over the clean, warm flannel as though to warm himself.  He knows intuitively that something is going on, and not for the first time he is reminded that Cas isn’t just a socially inept guy in a trenchcoat.  The whole “your ways are not our ways” thing.  This feels angelic.  It feels… wrathy.  And somehow, that feels better than anything else.  Dean might even welcome a sock on the jaw right now; a shiner would be pain he could see.  
  
But Cas isn’t smiting him; he isn’t even speaking.  Not even breathing.  He is just still where he remains crouched on the floor in front of him, still just looking at him.  Dean isn’t looking back.  
  
“I should have told you,” he admits into the awkward silence.  It’s not an apology and won’t be. Can’t be.  “I thought we could handle it.”  
  
Castiel’s snort is derisive and borders on rude; it isn’t the sort of sound that Dean is accustomed to hearing from his friend.  It has a certain sarcastic social finesse that he doesn’t normally ascribe to the mild-mannered angel.  He realizes that it is a learned social gesture and he feels a strange pang when he figures out exactly from whom Cas picked it up.  
  
He raises his eyes to his friend’s face and says defensively, “Hey, we usually do okay with these end of times things.”  
  
The angel rolls his weight forward slightly and shifts to stand, and now the change in position makes it feel as though they are very close.  There is deep consideration in Cas’ eyes as he looks down at Dean, and the expansive immortal consciousness within him is rapidly mulling over dozens of threads of thought concurrently.  
  
He isn’t as weak to Dean’s tear-flushed face and guilt-ridden expression as he could have been; his own agitation has reached a deafening crescendo, and as a result some of his learned humanity has eased back.  In that moment, the angel in him is laid bare, exposed in all of its inhuman psychology.  
  
What draws him in again, softens his considerations, is the draw that his grace, even borrowed, feels to Dean Winchester’s burnished soul.  Castiel licks his lips, remembering again Dean’s loss; while it is nothing to the losses of his own race, the consequences of an absent God, and the guilt of his own hubris, he recognizes that it was not a weight that any man was made to bear.    
  
He extends a hand and rests his palm lightly against Dean’s cheek.  The contact is brief but meaningful.  Bracing.  Forgiving.  
  
“Dean, I need to you to tell me everything that you haven’t told me.”

  
  
\---------------------------

  
  
Gadreel can feel his hobbled wings mending.  The long, broken pinions have grown in again, the wounds of millions of years of chafing in seemingly eternal bondage have closed.  They are imperfect, but he feels a surge of pleasure in their wholeness.  He knows that soon, restored to heaven, they will be the same resplendent green-gold canopy that they were before his imprisonment, and he will once again be the angel who had stood watch at the garden.  
  
It had been a mistake; not a lapse in attention as much as a lapse in judgment.  The part of his mind that was wired into Sam Winchester’s recalled a dozen internet - what were they called - _memes_ that loudly reminded him in Impact font **You had one job**.  
  
One job, one unfair job that was doomed to fail because his father had _wanted_ it to fail.  Planned for it, because God the Father planned for everything, didn’t he?  To believe otherwise would be blasphemy.  And now he has taken as a vessel one of the lynchpins of the incomplete apocalypse.  That seems blasphemous, but in a calmingly Calvinist way he feels that it too must be fate.

Strangely, he isn't angry.  Only scared and hopeful.  
  
He turns to look in the mirror-like glass of the store front.  Sam Winchester is tall and broad shouldered, strong.  Beautiful in a human way that is fragile and ephemeral, even now that he is stockaded from the inside with an angelic presence.   Inside, his body is healing slowly with the steady application of Gadreel’s grace.  He doesn’t know why he continues to heal this vessel, aside from the fact that it is a promise that he is still able to keep.  He promised that he would heal Sam Winchester.  He promised that he would _protect_ Sam Winchester.  
  
This new betrayal blackens his grace, though.  He feels it, and he feels the tarnish on his honor; it is exactly what his brothers would have expected of him, thinking that they knew his heart.  
  
As he looks again at his physical reflection’s pointed chin, he tries to convince himself that he is honorable.  He is cradling Sam Winchester’s soul and his consciousness gently within his grace because he is a lover of God and humanity.  It’s whole, it’s entire; it’s safe. He is  _protecting_ Sam Winchester.  He is safe from all harm because Gadreel is awed by the simple glory of his unbreakable human soul.  
  
Looking at himself, he realizes that he is moving without meaning to be.  He looks down to see his left hand rising to clasp his right.  He watches as his fingers smooth and press over a familiar, deep scar on the palm of his hand.  Smooth and press, smooth and press.    
  
There is a significance in the movement but he doesn’t recognize it.


	2. Second Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas come to a realization. Crowley makes a discovery. Kevin starts to wake up.

It isn’t that the list of private horrors is long; to the contrary, many of Dean’s recent secrets interlock in such a way that it all begins feels like symptoms of one (monumental) hidden truth.  
  
The hunter drinks steadily, but not heavily, as he lays out one line item after another.  There's no pretense or excuses as he methodically draws out the linear progression of events, like red Sharpie on a AAA roadmap.  However, as he speaks, he’s suddenly aware of how quickly the situation had escalated and how much he has shouldered alone; his shame is apparent, but he speaks more quickly, more freely, as the weight lifts.  By the time he explains that it was Not Ezekiel who brought Castiel back from the dead, the words are fluid and his throat is unconstricted.  
  
He falters when he admits that he made Cas leave on the other angel’s say so.  For the first time since he started his story, he looks away.  
  
Castiel just watches, his expression open and interested.  Behind his eyes, tumblers have fallen into place and he suddenly understands a great deal more about his previous expulsion from the bunker.  He had taken it as a rejection of everything he had become, as assignment of burden, and an assessment of worthlessness.  He had spent more than one of his exiled nights curled up on the floor of the stock room at the gas station considering Dean’s abandonment and his own mortal futility.    
  
In the face of this confession, he feels some of his resentment melt away and leave only vague melancholy.    
  
Dean had put Sam before him.  While he would never expect anything different, he is quietly aware that he isn’t first in anyone’s heart.  Angels in his experience rarely are, but a part of him has been in love with humanity long enough to develop a want for closeness.  Castiel longs to be someone’s favorite.    
  
He doesn’t address that, though. Instead he says simply, “I’m relieved; I thought I had done something wrong.”  
  
At that, Dean’s eyes jerk back to his face, startled and guilty.  
  
“What?  No.  No no nooo.”  
  
“You gave me no explanation.”  
  
“I couldn’t.”  
  
“It didn’t lend much credence to the things you had said to me in my room.”  
  
Again, it was a simple statement, delivered in a tone that didn’t carry judgment so much as fact.    
  
That night, Dean had insisted on looking him over thoroughly, despite that his wounds had been healed on his resurrection.  He’d been talking a blue streak as he turned Cas around, examining his thin torso and arms, his fingers following the path of his eyes as though he couldn’t trust anything but touch.  Cas had been too tired to take much from what he’d said, but certain pieces stuck in his mind; he’d secreted them away in his soft human heart and held to them much tighter than he wanted to admit.    
  
 _Man, I thought that was it for you… just, you can’t do that again.  I can’t do this without you.  Like really, I mean it.  It’s different now, it’s going to be different this time.  Just stay, okay?  Come on, come here._  
  
Then it had turned to kissing.  Heated kissing that had had more of an effect on Cas than the entire night with April had.  He’d pressed himself up against the hunter and Dean had pulled him flush as though he couldn’t get close enough but had to try.    
  
 _I need you, Cas.  Yeah, even like this I do, all right?  How you are.  Yeah, just like this.  Don’t make a big deal out of it.  I just, you’re the only one who gets it.  Me. That sounds stupid, right?  Cas, really.  It’ll work this time._  
  
And of course he’d believed him - it was exactly what he’d wanted to hear, needed to hear - and they’d been all over each other in that soundproof room, like it had been before.  It was different with a mortal body.  More tiring but more intense.  Multi-hued, like the layers of ozone in a sunset.  Complete.  Afterwards they’d dozed for an hour, then Dean had kissed him again and sent him off to shower.  
  
And shortly after that, it all fell apart again.  It _wasn’t_ different that time.  It _didn’t_ work for the same reason that it never worked; they just couldn’t stop lying to each other.  As he’d hitched a ride westward with a talkative group of Mormon missionaries, he’d reflected on just how stupid he was and how much more acutely everything hurt with a human heart.  Heartbreak was a in fact literal ache.  
  
And now Dean is looking at him again and his face is like it had been that night - cautious but hopeful.  Wanting something that isn’t sex and isn’t a post-apocalyptic angelic favor.  Needing something.  But this time, Castiel is imbued with grace which quells the knee-jerk desire to pull him into his arms again and tell him that he would always stay.  The angel’s mind works on multiple planes again, a creature constructed of thought, and this time he holds still.  
  
“I know, it looked bad.  It did.”  
  
“It did,” Cas agreed calmly.  
  
“I meant it, though.”  
  
“I’m sure.”  
  
Dean isn’t sure if that was more of the angel’s surprising sarcasm or some form of acknowledgement.  With that kind of uncertainty lingering over him, he doesn’t know how to proceed.  He clears his throat and looks away for a moment, then rubs his stubbly chin, asking in the most political voice possible, “Look… can we… ah, can we not talk about this right now?”  
  
“Of course.  It isn’t important.”  
  
Again with the ambiguous meaning.  Dean wishes for the millionth time that Cas would exert a little effort toward varying the pitch and cadence of his voice with his moods.  He lets out short, exasperated puff of air, closing his eyes briefly as he pinches the bridge of his nose for strength.  
  
“It's important, I didn't say it wasn't.  God.  Just, I have a lot more to tell you.”  
  
“So tell me, Dean.”  
  
It isn’t that Cas is stuck on this cosmically trivial topic.  He feels the weight of Dean’s confession and he knows that Sam and his angelic possessor are first and foremost in the hunter’s thoughts.  They should be.  It’s simply that Castiel is capable of thinking about so many things at once.  Unseen, his aching wings shift restlessly.  He meets Dean’s eyes steady, and this time he can feel that Dean is steeling himself to continue.    
  
He is also steeling himself to reach out.  He makes a play for subtlety, inching his hand forward slightly on the top of his leg.  He draws it back sheepishly without making contact, not looking at it of course, then drums his fingertips on dark, worn denim leg of his trousers.  
  
“So after that, Charlie came to visit and we had a bit of adventure with the wicked witch of the West.  And, ah, Charlie got fucking zapped, and Zeke - who’s not Zeke - brought her back.”  
  
“He seems to do that a lot,” Cas comments drily.  
  
“Yeah, well.  We die a lot,” Dean says hoarsely, feeling his throat tighten chokingly as the fresh memory of Kevin blindsides him again.  He takes a quick, deep breath, trying to keep it all together even as he feels the splotchy color coming to his cheeks and the tip of his nose.  What he does not need right now is Cas being a fucking bitch because he's jealous.  He manages a choked, “It was convenient.”  
  
At that, Cas remembers his compassion and reaches for Dean’s hand, which was now white-knuckled, clenched on his upper leg.  He laces his fingers between Dean’s larger ones.  He meets his eyes, his own expression calm.  Squeezing his hand lightly, he admits quietly, "I'm sorry that I was powerless to help you."  
  
"Shut up. Fuck," Dean says before clearing his throat several times.  He rubs at his eyes with his free hand and shifts his hand to press his palm more firmly against the angel's, as though he is drawing strength from the contact.  
  
He is quiet for a moment, struggling to quash his sorrow enough to speak levelly.  His thumb moves agitatedly against the back of Cas's warm hand.  He is noticeably warmer than Dean remembers, though Cas always ran slightly hot.  
  
"So, after that things started getting more... Strange.  I started to doubt the angel guy more.  He'd just... Y'know pop in and shit, and it felt like he was watching more."  
  
"He was likely always watching,"  
  
"Ugh, Cas.  I don't want to think about that angelic creeper watching my brother shower.  Men just need some... y'know, private time."  
  
Cas recognizes that Dean is avoiding the real issue, which is that this other being has been a problem for far longer than Dean had even realized.  And naturally, he would have to play it off into sexual humour.  
  
The narrative has become muddled now, though, and Cas needs to lead Dean back to the facts of the story.  He glances down at their linked hands and says, "So when did you learn about the spell...?"  
  
"Right, ah, right around that case when I saw you.  Sam and Keving got Crowley to translate a translation of a translation from the tablet."  
  
"Kevin and Sam," Cass repeats, not bothering to ask if Dean had known and deliberately misled him when they'd seen each other.  He knows that he did because he knows that Dean is a great big well-intentioned liar.  It takes one to know one, as humans said.  He sighs quietly and leans forward slightly, his soft lips slightly parted in concentration.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Did... Sam ever complain about missing time?"  
  
"Yeah, all the time.  Why?"  
  
Cas sits back again in his chair, "You do know that Crowley would have known Sam was an occupied vessel."  
  
Clearly Dean did not know this.  He lets out a rattling breath and drags his hand back through his short, gelled hair.  He repeats the gesture fitfully as he searches for words, his narrow face taking on a bit of furious color.  In retrospect it seems obvious - all of these bastards can see each other.  Hell, half the time they seemed to know each other by name.   
  
" _Sonuvabitch_."  
  
"I want to talk to Crowley," the angel says, abandoning the rest of Dean's story for the moment.  He knows that it is important and there are facts that he will need to know.  However, the thought that there could be a way to correct his mistakes overwhelms everything else.  He feels a resurgence of hope and it hits him hard enough to make him almost giddy.  Outwardly, there is only a smile but seeing it, Dean feels a quickening himself.  
  
"Yeah, yeah okay.  We'll go.  Let's go, Cas."  
  
Cas rises to his feet with fluidity that isn't so much grace as a certain economy of movement.  As an angel, he never makes any extraneous movements.    
  
"Go wash your face and meet me there," Cas says brusquely, giving his hand a squeeze before releasing it.  He feels the lingering moisture on his own palm and realizes the coolness without Dean's touch.  His own hands are hot.  
  
Dean is slightly surprised, but he immediately sees the logic in it.  Nodding, he rubs his hands on his jeans, then turns to walk to the bathroom in the hallway.  
  
Kevin's door is closed, and for now he pretends that the ex-AP student is just crashing between caffeine-induced benders.  He's gonna just finish up that tablet and then sneak out for leftovers from the fridge.  Right-o.  Yes.  This is only temporary, he tells himself firmly as he splashes water against his own over-warm, stinging eyes.    
  
 _Someone is gonna be rewarded for their loyalty to this fucking family and it's gonna be you, you smartass little dick._

  
  
\--------------

 

Oh, she's happy.  She's warm and comfortable as her supple skin soaks in the thick red fluid.  Human or not, Elizabeth of Bathory had definitely known what was what; a tub full of human blood was a simple pleasure and she really should indulge more often.  
  
Abaddon laughs to herself and tips her head back, soaking her flaming red hair with the blood.  She can feel it wicking up between the fine, curling strands and the weight of it is delicious. She wants to pull a coiled curl into her mouth and just suck the liquid right out.  Let it coat her throat.  Hell's war paint, mother's milk.   
  
It's a true pleasure to be the queen of Hell.  It's about time that someone did it right; no more of this pussyfooting around making deals.  No, she is a knight of Hell and she takes what she wants.  At the moment, what she wants is just this - a quiet hour to herself to reflect on some of the lingering annoyance.  She smiles as she thinks of the real terror in Dean Winchester's eyes at their last meeting; poor little boy.  She'd been filthy with him and he had been _scared_.  Probably the first time a bit of dirty talk had gotten under his skin like that.  Ha, she would certainly enjoy riding him raw.  
  
She hums softly to herself, just a few notes, before sinking down until her nose and mouth are submerged.  It's only her eyes that are visible above the coagulating surface as she looks over her attendant.  
  
Her only regret is that the soul in this meatsuit hadn't come back with her after that little flame out with Sam Winchester.  (How funny it is, referring to the Winchesters by both first and last name as though it was just one word.   _Samwinchester. Deanwinchester. Samandeanwinchester._ )  Anyway, she'd enjoyed the company of that little ginger, after all.  Hearing her crying and trying to regain control of her body had been almost like having a private cheering section.  
  
 _Go, Abaddon, go!_  

Ha.  
  
After a moment, she rises to her feet to climb out.  Once the clotting set in, it really was no fun at all.    
  
Her entire body is coated in scarlet from, save for an unmarked half-mask across her eyes.  Her attendant looks her over and she can see in his gaze that he wants her.  Not this pretty, blood-slicked, red-painted body, but the burning, black hearted demon within.    
  
She licks her lips and walks, naked, toward him.  Languorously licking the blood off of her scarlet lips, she smiles.  
  
Reaching out, she catches him by his thick throat and drags him in for a brutal kiss.  Inhaling sharply, she draws the minor demon into herself and consumes him whole.    
  
The now unoccupied meat suit jerks to consciousness and recognizes his position just in time for her to snap his neck. She loves when their eyes widen like that!  
  
 _Everyone wants the queen of Hell, and my, it's certainly good to be the queen._

  
  
\-----  
  
  
  
Kevin wanders through memories now with the knowledge that they're memories.  It doesn't stop him from feeling a flutter of joy at going to work at the hospital with his father or meeting his maternal grandmother the first time (again), but he can feel the unreality of it.  Something about it reminds him of those shots in movies where a single frame is frozen, then rotated in 360 degrees before continuing forward.   
  
"So, how do I get out of this?" he asks his mom over a bowl of Lucky Charms, "I've read enough about heaven to know that this is it.  And while it's better than the alternative, I've got stuff to do."  
  
He knows his eyes should be burned right out, but he can see just fine.  
  
Linda Tran just smiles warmly.  She's around thirty, meaning that Kevin is around 6.  She's wearing her hair longer and has just discovered the perfume that she's going to wear for the rest of her life.  It's light and floral with a hint of vanilla and she hasn't learned yet exactly how much to use.  The scent reminds him of her, and Kevin misses her even though he's sitting right beside her.  Her earrings are very professional little gold triangles that correspond to the buttons on her blazer.  Looking at her with an adult's sensibilities, he knows that she is meeting with clients that morning.  
  
"I'll be in at 11:30, all right?  That's when the big hand is on the six and the little hand is on the eleven."  
  
Ah, she must be younger than thirty, then, since Kevin had learned to tell time in preschool. He smiles happily at her, involuntarily taking a spoonful of the sugary cereal.  
  
"Mom, I really need your help.  Talk it through with me."  
  
"The buses will take us to the zoo just a little after that, okay?"  
  
Ah, that field trip with his daycare.  His mom had gotten off work to act as a chaperone on the field trip.  They had kept a picture of them in front of the penguin enclosure on the fridge until pre-adolescent, painfully self-conscious Kevin had insisted on taking it down before his friends came over.    
  
"It's not really heaven if I don't want to be here," Kevin sighs, sitting back in the chair.  
  
He tries to recall the writing on the angel tablet about heaven and the role of angels within it.  Likely, part of the reason why the illusion of reality wasn't quite so complete is the lack of angelic shepherds to ease him back into the warm fantasy.  He climbs to his feet and wanders around the kitchen, looking at the drawings magneted to the fridge.  There's a grocery list and his father's angular, compact writing says "This list needs more cowbell" randomly at the top.  His dad had been that kind of dad - the dumb jokes kind of dad.  He could rattle off a dozen of his father's favorite one-liners and he feels a surge of warmth at being able to revisit details of a moment that would have been lost on him at the time.  
  
He looks through the cabinets, noting the dated selection of snacks.  Did they even still make Gatorade on that color?  There's no one to stop him and route him back to the table to finish breakfast, and his mother continues to talk and smile at his empty seat.    
  
It's all empty up here, just a lot of glowy little human souls and one self-important angel.  The rest of those angels can't get back in and he can't get out.  
  
But, he realizes with sudden cold clarity, _he's_ here.  He's in heaven. He's the man on the inside and Metatron doesn't have so much as an expendable bodyguard posted.

"Mom," he calls as he walks over to the door leading to the garage, "I'm going out."  
  
The doors have to lead somewhere.  
  
\--------  
  
"Why hello there," Crowley purrs amicably to the angel who has just crossed into Dean's Weekend Fun Dungeon.  The deposed King of Hell smiles his smarmy, lascivious smile as he drags his dark eyes up over Castiel from his booted feet to the short, uneven spikes of his dark hair.  
  
"You smell different," he comments, cocking his head to the side.  
  
"So do you," Castiel replies coldly.  
  
The demon laughs, though there is something different in his voice, "Well, I'm guessing it has something to do with that whole botched third trial thing.  You know, where Sammy went limp and neither of us got off."  
  
"I need you to tell me about that translation that you did."  
  
"And I need someone to scratch my balls, Castopher, but no one's exactly stepping up to volunteer."  
  
The angel's patience is thin.  His jaw tightens as he takes a step forward, bringing him closer to the bound demon.  He is smoldering, his heavenly fire visible on a wavelength that a creature like Crowley can perceive.  Light so white that it almost burns blue sparks within the demon's vision, illuminating the shadows of something behind his shoulders.  
  
"My, look at those sparks.  You really should keep all of that heavenly wrath in check."  
  
Crowley's adrenalized glee drops off immediately as Castiel steps closer.  Realization dawns and his goading smile is replaced by sharp hauteur.  
  
"Oh. _Oh_."  
  
The angel pauses when Crowley says lowly, "Knew I'd heard that you'd lost your grace.  Oh, there'll be a price to pay for _that_ , pigeon.  But you know that, don't you.  You feel it already."  
  
The smell on Castiel is infection.  He's consumed by fever as the foreign grace wars with his consciousness inside his human vessel.  The heat of it burns him, and now the shame flares just as brightly.  
  
"It's not just like getting a jump off someone else's battery, is it?  No?  Oh, well isn't that just too bad for the Winchester's little tree topper.  Can you even fly on those stolen wings?"  
  
Immediately, Cas's blade is hot in his palm.  Feverishly burning in his palm.  His intonation is flat. 

"Tell me about the translation."  
  
"Go ask Samdreel," Crowley laughs smugly.  
  
"Samandriel is dead," Cas replies flatly, his self-disgust only building at the memory.  He wonders how the demon knew, but doesn't ask.  He is a tactician and a soldier and knows that he is only being drawn off of his intended course.  
  
"No, not heaven's former cutest.  God rest his little plastic night light.  Sam-Gadreel.  You know, the moose muppet and the angel with his arm up his ass."  
  
 _Gadreel._  
  
Castiel tries not to let his horror translate to his vessel's expression, but Crowley sees the tick of his eyebrow and the quiver of his sword.  His delight is physical, almost tangible at the recognition of the angel's well-concealed despair.  
  
"Was the translation accurate?" Castiel demands with carefully controlled calm.  
  
"You know, I can't remember.  There was certainly _something_ about a spell."  
  
There is one emotion too many layered upon the angel and in his fevered rage he momentarily loses himself.  Four massive, wings unfold from his shoulder blades, brushing against the far walls and crowding against the high ceiling.  All at once, the angel is taking up the entire room; his sword is aflame and his blue eyes are lit from within.  
  
Crowley feels a glorious spike of terror because Castiel is truly awesome in the biblical definition- powerful, terrifying, and beautiful.    
  
From the doorway comes a harsh bark of Castiel's name.  The diminutive form, a hard _Cas!_ as only one man on Earth, Hell, Heaven, or Purgatory could say it.  
  
The flames die as he remembers himself, the light goes from his eyes and the wings, while still corporeal, slump and almost seem to collapse onto themselves.  
  
The demon is satisfied, for he has seen what he needed to see; Castiel is not just sick from this stolen grace.  It is killing him.  He saw the awe and the glory, but he also saw the decomposition already starting down the flesh of his wings, he saw membranes tear as they snapped outward to their full majestic spread.  He sees now the blood-spotted down clinging to the savaged limbs; they are rumpled and imperfect.    
  
They're worse than Gadreel's after a lifetime of imprisonment and the demon positively crows in satisfaction.  
  
Dean sees all of this as well, and he moves toward the angel with a pained expressed.  Without thinking catches on to one of the damaged wings, flexing it open to examine it as though he knew a damned thing about angelic triage.  
  
"What the fuck are you?" he asks in a panic, regretting his word choice almost immediately.    
  
Castiel is ashamed to answer, and in the stumbling moment of hesitation, Crowley's sharp voice interjects triumphantly, " _That_ , squirrel, is a poisoned angel.  _That_ is a bloody corpse eater."  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personal indulgences continue. I can't stand the thought of Kevin dying for no reason, so I'm giving him one. Lookit that little badass. :) I'm also fascinated by the whole grace transference thing; I feel like it's such a bizarre plot thing (and so inconsistent with anything that we've seen) that there must be a reason why no one has done it before. 
> 
> Sorry it's a little dialogue heavy... but I love writing dialogue. Crowley is so fun to write!
> 
> Also, I love roleplay and co-writing. If you feel like writing with me, please feel free to message me here or on tumblr (horriblyefficient gets checked pretty often. I'm also often on Skype as nickkenning.)


	3. Steady Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas have a lot to talk about. Kevin meets someone unexpected in his wandering. Charlie considers her choices.

Every day brings a new danger, which Dorothy calmly and methodically diffuses.  It's exciting, yeah, but Charlie feels the inklings of almost tedium as she memorizes techniques that are less magic than science.  There is little difference between ganking a flying monkey and a Wendigo, at the end of the day.  A mythical creature is just a mythical creature regardless of locale.  
  
Despite a love of adventure, she misses her home.  Her encyclopedic knowledge of movie monsters is irrelevant in Oz, as is her ability to rewire and recode just about any modern electronic anything.  For the first time, she is living without an unusual talent.  Where she had once secretly fantasized that she was more than human in a mundane world, she is now painfully aware that she is an ordinary person in an extraordinary world.  It isn't what she imagined. 

Unfortunately, either is adventuring.  There is a lot more hack and bash to this mystical quest business than she had envisioned and a lot less glowing lights and ethereal music. It's the endless grind of repetitive monsters without the showy graphics and cheesy sound effect announcing a level-up.    
  
The level ups were things like losing weight and gaining muscle, memorizing monster types and remembering to always watch for sources of fresh drinking water.    
  
She misses her family.    
  
She knew when she left that Big Brother Winchester was distinctly Not Okay with her leaving.  There had been something important that he had needed to tell her but wouldn't, and even now she wonders what it had been.  When the door closed behind them, she saw Dean watching his family disintegrating.  She can’t forget that.  
  
She feels a twinge of guilt as she saves a world that isn't her own, knowing that at that moment her home and her family could have been in danger.  
  
For all she knew, both of the Winchesters were dead already.  
  
Curled up against Dorothy's back to keep warm, she can't shake the feeling that she is being selfish.  Winchesters, even honorary ones, aren't allowed personal indulgences.  
  
"Hey, hey.  Dorothy, wake up."  
  
 _This world is great, but what about ours?_  
  
  
\-----

  
  
"S-so what then, you're like an angel zombie or something?" Dean demands frantically, his fingers still curled tightly into the loose feathers of Castiel's wing.  
  
"No, no... it's not..." the angel tries to explain, frantic though his voice is level.  It's not so disgusting as that, not so shameful as that.  His vessel's stomach lurches at the thought of what he must seem like to Dean.  He quells a wave of something that feels like a human echo of panic.  
  
"What is it then?  Are you dying?  Are you fucking _dying_ on me?"  
  
"It's..."  
  
"It's an heart transplant gone wrong," Crowley says silkily, tilting his head back and closing his eyes rapturously, "Your feathery little friend doesn't have long if he doesn't expel that mojo."  
  
"That true?" Dean demands.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"So just let it go!"  
  
The hunter is panicked when bits of fluff come free from Castiel's wings as he pulls his hands back.  They cling to his skin with the static and moisture, sticky in places with blood.  He rubs them away, searching his friend's face.  
  
"There are things I must accomplish first."  
  
"No. Screw that, man. That's crap. We'll figure out another way."  
  
"I've decided."  
  
Dean sets his jaw and is about to protest when Castiel's wings are folded back into the space between molecules, vanishing from sight.  It is as though the ancient creature is dismissing the topic itself at the same time.  His jaw is set and his eyes a brilliant, hard blue, "I have responsibilities bigger than my own life."  
  
"Cute.  A self-sacrificing Winchester by injection," Crowley says with a majestic roll of his dark eyes.  
  
“ _You_ are a Winchester by injection,” the angel corrects sharply, literal to a fault and completely missing the jibe.  Under different conditions, Dean would have laughed outright.  This time, his eyebrows flick up but he doesn’t even bother.  It’s been years since he bothered to even reply to the ‘banging the angel’ jokes that every inhuman dickmonkey seemed to make; he wasn't going to start again now.  
  
Crowley however snorts with laughter.  
  
"The clock is ticking though, lovebird.  You're going to burn away quickly if you don't get your own grace back... and to do that, you might need to know a bit more about that little translation."  
  
Dean's jaw is tight, the muscle striations flicker in and out of sight as he clenches and unclenches his teeth.  He is at a breaking point now and he recognizes it; there is simply too much to bear.  His hour-dead prophet, his lost brother, and now his dying companion.  To say nothing of heaven and hell trying to burn the world down while Crowley makes gay jokes in his basement.  
  
"So deal.  What do you want?"  
  
The hunter's voice is clipped and harsh.  Ugly.  Crowley recognizes that this is the proverbial end, the edge before the chasm.  This is where Dean Winchester breaks, and he does not want to be caught in that blast radius.  
  
His own voice is oil slick, "For you to finish what your worthless brother started.  Finish the cure."  
  
Dean stares uncomprehendingly at him, "You... _want_ to be cured."  
  
"It might be hard for you to believe, Zoolander, but it's not exactly comfortable being caught in the middle of this this limbo bullshit.  My blood is on fucking fire.  If I can’t go back, then I can only move forward."  
  
Dean glances at at his angelic companion.  Cas nods evenly, considering the application of the cure and its effects on his friend.  He is silent for a moment before saying quietly, "Done out of order, it would not restart the trials."  
  
Dean licks his lips, "So you talk, I dose you up with my blood, and everyone walks away happy."  
  
"In short, yes."  
  
"And that's it."  
  
"That's it."  
  
Dean nods, “Pleasure doing business with you.  We start tomorrow, first thing.  I give you the first treatment, you start talking.”  
  
With that, he claps the demon firmly on the shoulder, almost amicably, and then firmly takes Castiel’s arm and bodily drags him from the room.  He knows that his charge is acquiescing to his direction and can only be distantly thankful; if Cas had wanted to stay there, no exertion of Dean’s considerable physical strength would have moved him.  
  
Left alone, Crowley closes his eyes and tips his head back.  His features are slack, lit unattractively by the dim, uneven overhead bulb.  He sighs quietly, letting the breath tremble on the now-still air.  
  
 _So, does Sam know you’re in there?  Don’t worry, precious, I won’t tell.  Gadreel?  Now, there's a name I haven't heard in awhile._  
  
The stupid bastard had promised to finish it.  He was in that thrice-damned, towering abomination’s fucking meat suit; all it would have taken was one last application of his blood.  Just one more injection and a few choice words and this aching, burning middle world would have resolved into a miserable human consciousness.    
  
The problem was that the angel itself ruined it; while Sam’s blood may have been clean, Gadreel’s was laden with guilt and he had no one to whom he could confess.  Angels didn’t do that.  The fact was that neither of them actually knew how an angel could find absolution because angels hadn't been designed to sin.  That was certainly a later addition, though Gadreel had introspectively said that it must have been in his father's plan.

Pious idiot.  
   
Not that they hadn’t tried injecting him again.  The application of Sam’s angel-infused blood, provided by Gadreel during one of Sam’s little mental walks around the block, cooled the fire in Crowley’s veins for a time.  Not long, but enough for him to remember that pain was not his natural condition.  As a result, he become addicted to the respite that came from rarified human blood.  
  
Unfortunately, It was easy for Gadreel to use this new knowledge against him, easy enough to convince him to lie about the translation.  Of course the tainted angel didn’t want heaven reopened; he might have been returned to his bondage and not even the most stoic heart could endure that.  
  
Crowley wants the release of a completed cure, despite that he doesn’t want to be human.  It has been hard spending these months in silence, feigning indifference, while his blood boiled through the circuit of his veins and his mind slowly turned against him.  He draws another deep breath through his nose and lets it out slowly in the silence.  
  
When he turns mortal and his blood cools to a balmy 98.6 degrees, how would his human mind process the weight of his sins?  

  
  
\-----------------

  
  
Kevin walks purposefully, but it doesn't mean that he isn't distracted by the warm moods and tender faces that he finds.  He lingers longer in certain memories than he should and is onyl diffusely aware of a guilty little tug in the back of his mind reminding him to move forward.  
  
 _Is there anywhere I can find their real souls?  They must be here, and they must be walking through dreams just like me._  
  
He forces himself to recall not only the words about heaven transcribed on the tablet, but the cult-classic Supernatural books.  Carver Edlund had officially stopped publishing the series on paper when Dean had gone to hell, but he hadn't stopped writing.  All of the books written before the author's 2010 disappearance were available online, many with extensive annotations and analyses by the series near-rabid fans.   
  
He recalls a search for God that had culminated in finding a laid-back angel named Joshua in a garden.  His mind ticks through the paths that the Winchesters had taken, how they had passed from one personalized heaven into another.  He remembers that some heavens were connected and he wonders to whose his might be linked.  
  
He takes a deep breath and finds another seam between memories.  The last few scenes have been moving progressively backwards in time as he met his childhood best friend and started kindergarten.  He reasons then that there must be an end eventually and the beginning of his memory seemed a natural point to target.  
  
He passes into a sunny nursery where he watches his parents present him with a Fisher-Price plastic playhouse.  It’s a sturdy affair that they assembled themselves, standing three and a half feet tall and made with solid but yielding plastic that still smells the slightest bit chemically.  The little roof is a cheery red and the walls are beige.  A bright, primary green door of the same hollow plastic construction swings open jauntily, welcomingly.  
  
His mom is crouching by the playhouse and coaxing him in, and he remembers, even though he couldn't have been more than three, thinking that it was like heaven with the light streaming down from the open windows.  Just like heaven.  
  
Adult Kevin, considering the memory as he watches his dad playing with his ubiquitous camcorder (this one clunky with a distressing number of buttons that his father doesn't know how to use), thinks that yeah, it's like heaven in a bizarre sort of _Inception_ way, but that is about where the resemblance stopped.  The whole sunshine and fluffy clouds and golden harps thing isn't really what was happening here, and he wonders how he'd ever thought it was.   
  
He crouches down and crawls into the playhouse, wondering if it is another passageway between memories, but is just surrounded by the cheerful plastic interior.  He feels tempted to bite down on the green windowsill because he has such a clear memory of what it felt like to gnaw on it.  
  
Sighing, he climbs out, listening to his father calling, "Kevin, Keh-vin, look over here.  Kevin, do you like it?  Smile for daddy."  
  
He remembers this video.  They'd all been so happy. He's happy now thinking about it as he walks to the closet door and pulls it open experimentally..  
  
The door opens into a hospital room where his mother, young and exhausted with her long hair back in a wrecked ponytail, is dozing in a bed.  His dad is asleep in the chair beside her, his head tipped back at an uncomfortable angle that makes him snore softly..    
  
A nurse rouses his mother and places a baby into her arms.    
  
Kevin feels his pulse quickening.  This was the first time he met his parents.  
  
He swallows hard, surprised by the strength of his emotion.    
  
They're all so happy.  They were so happy.  
  
Even then he'd been marked as a prophet, but they couldn't know that.  Couldn't know his dad would have an unexpected heart attack at 40, couldn't have known his mom would someday be possessed by a demon and that he himself would die at the hands of an angel.  Right now the biggest wrinkle in the Tran family 5 year plan is that his mom is likely going to be out of work longer than they'd planned.  
  
He is distantly angry but he feels protected, cocooned in this bubble of happiness and normalcy.  Promise.  In that moment, they were a brand new family.  
  
He watches for a long time as his parents talk.  _His nose is like yours.  No, I think he looks like you from the nose down, look at his chin.  He's perfect, even if he is a little yellow.  Better jaundice than colic, Linda.  Well we won't know if he has colic for two weeks yet!_   _I'm sure he doesn't, and he'll be sleeping  8 hours in no time._  
  
It's easy to stay in that moment, but with a great force of will he pulls himself to his feet.  He can come back when his work is done.  
  
Steeling himself, he pushes open the door to an adjoining room and steps out into a crowded restaurant where a man is kneeling down to clumsily propose to a girl in a green dress.  He doesn't recognize anything and there are no emotions to step in to for context.  He realizes that this isn’t one of his memories at all.  
  
The awkward suitor, startled to see him, climbs to his feet and raises a hand to point at him.    
  
"Who are you?"  
  
Kevin stares.  As he does, he realizes that he knows the man, even though he has only seen him look this way in photos.  He blinks quickly, closing his mouth on a strangled sound.  
  
"Dad?"

  
\---------------

  
Dean pulls Cas back into his own room at the bunker.  There is a frantic, ineffectual energy that is communicated through a certain jerky quality of movement as he shuts the door, closing out the rest of the world, and rounds on the angel.  His face is blotchy again, and his pale freckles stand out sharply along his upper cheek bones.  He has an expression that Castiel recognizes and intuitively dislikes.  
  
"You have to let that grace go, Cas."  
  
"I've already said no."  
  
"Cas!  Come on!"  
  
"I don't have to do anything just because you've told me to," the angel informs him flatly, looking around at Dean's bedroom as a way to avoid looking at the man himself.  
  
Even so, he can see the hunter in every stylistic choice, from the assortment of cool and manly accessories to the vintage porn on the dresser to the old suits hanging in the closet.  Dean will never admit it, but he likes dressing up and will take any opportunity to put on a costume.  Castiel has always found this endearing, though he doesn’t know why.  When he looks back to Dean, the other man has mashed the heel of his palm up against the side of his nose, covering one eye.  Both eyes are closed and his mouth has been pressed into a hard, quivering line.  
  
Cas doesn't give him opportunity to talk, "We have other things to worry about that are more important."  
  
For a moment, Dean holds perfectly still, processing the truth of that statement.  Then he furiously grabs on to the front of Castiel's coat and jerks him forward.  This time, though, the angel has set his heels and the action serves only to yank Dean toward him and put him off balance.  He holds firmly, his thoughts derailed in that half-second, before he meets his eyes with an intensity that rivals Castiel's best angelic stare.  
  
The angel tilts his head to the side in the universal gesture of annoyed consideration and stares right back despite that they are almost nose to nose.  
  
Dean continues forcefully, "That may be, but this is the only thing I can do a damn thing about right now.  I'm not losing you too, Cas."  
  
"That isn't your choice."

He casts about for a compelling reason why Castiel should listen to him.  
  
"I told you before that I need you."  
  
He meets his eyes and says quietly, "Dean, I told _you_ that I would stay with you for the rest of my mortal life, and the next day you turned me out with five hundred dollars and a printed bus pass.  It's easy for you to say that you need me when I'm all that you have."  
  
Castiel realizes how deeply he's wounded the other man by his sharp intake of breath and for a moment he regrets replying at all.  Dean looks away, unable to meet his eyes with the flare of self-loathing presently burning out his insides.  
  
He tries to rally, but he can barely speak.  Finally, he says, "Yeah. Okay, Cas.  You know we've never been good at talking to each other about the important stuff, and there are years of just... utter crap between us.  I'm a fucking liar.  I got it.  The goddamn _king_ of liars."  
  
His voice cracks slightly in the last word.  He clears his throat and continues, "But it's not like you've been super great either. That's fine though, I'm not pissed anymore.  We can work it out.  This could be-"  
  
"This isn't the time. Gadreel-"  
  
"There's not gonna _be_ another one.  And even though I need to be tracking down Sam and, fuck, _burying_ Kevin, and going and confessing all my damn sins to some priest so I can wheel and deal with Crowley, I'm standing here talking to you."  
  
They are still face to face, Dean's fingers still clenched around handfuls of Castiel's coat.  
  
"I'm going to be honest with you and I want you to be honest with me," the hunter says almost desperately.  
  
Cas meets his eyes levelly then replies, "There's a first time for everything."  
  
"Don't be a dick."  
  
"I wasn't."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Dean's shoulders relax slightly as with some considerable effort he releases the front of Cas's coat.  He licks his lips, not knowing exactly what to say or where to start; he doesn't actually know what to do to change the poisoned mind of a self-sacrificing angelic being, but he knows he would promise just about anything right now just so that he wouldn’t be alone.  
  
To his surprise, Cas is the one who speaks.  
  
"It isn't that I want to die, Dean.  That I might leave you alone is my greatest regret."  
  
Dean feels as though he has been stabbed.  The horror of the day creeps up on him again and he feels his hands shaking.  He curls his fingers into loose fists - Cas has already seen him cry today, and on other occasions even beg, but pride compels to keep it all together.  
  
"So don't," he tries casually.  
  
"I can't be selfish. I caused this all and it's my--"  
  
"Shut up.  _Don't_ tell me that this is on you to fix.  Don't tell me that the world would be better without you.  Metatron _used_ you, Cas, he preyed on your love of your family.  That dickwad is to blame for the angels falling, not you.  You were just--"  
  
"'Trying to help,’" Cas finishes for him, "But good intentions don't matter when they only lead to horrible consequences."  
  
It's something that Dean has thought himself on more than one occasion, each time recalling his father's stern growl _**You** break it, **you** fix it_.  He'd been taught that it was just what men did.  You fuck it up, you fix it.  Alone.  It doesn't matter if you were trying to do the right thing; if it hurt more than it helped, it was just as bad as doing the wrong thing.  And if you were a real man, worthy of wearing the family name, you had damn well better set it to rights without taking anyone else down with you.  
  
Hearing the words out of Cas, though, he's suddenly angry that he's had this way of thinking ingrained in him.  He and his brother had suffered their whole lives to atone for mistakes, feeling that they would be just as bad as the monsters that they hunted if they didn't pay the proverbial pound of flesh for their failures.  
  
"Good intentions do matter," he says with sudden, surprising vehemence.  
  
Cas looks at him skeptically.  
  
"Good intentions mean you'll fix it right, Cas.  Good intentions mean that when the time comes you won't go it alone because - because you care more about getting it right than salvaging your pride."  
  
He realizes as he says it that he is also convincing himself.  
  
The hunter takes a deep breath, “You're not just doing this for your own honor, right?  'Cause that's hubris again, right?  You want really fix things... because... because, well, let's face it, just opening heaven isn't going to be enough.  There are factions now.  You can't just live long enough to unlock the pearly gates, Cas then pop off to infinity and beyond."  
  
There is obviously merit to this argument, for Dean can see the angel's resolve faltering.  
  
"I can't do this as a human man."  
  
"Come on, Cas.  Sam and I do a crapload as human men.  So let me help you.  We can do this together.”  
  
Castiel heaves a weighty sigh, his rigid shoulders slumping, "I'll decide a course of action after Crowley gives us an accurate translation."  
  
Dean feels heartened at that, but it doesn't fully assuage his fear of losing his friend and lover.  Still, he nods, "How long till this shit kills you?"  
  
"I've got a week or two."  
  
He doesn't tell Dean that it will become steadily more painful as the infection consumes his intangible angelic body.  
  
"Well, we'll have this sorted by tomorrow night," Dean assures him.  
  
As he looks at the angel, he realizes that he can actually see that he is sick now that Cas has stopped hiding it.  The furrow in his brow isn't his usual near-constant consernation and the circles under his eyes actually are darker.  His skin is actually hot.   
  
It's painful to see weakness in the angel.  He reaches over and puts his arms around his companion's shoulders and hugs him tightly.  His body has that solid, unyielding angel quality again, but it softens as he shifts to hold Dean close.  Dean can feel that Cas is careful with him and he feels that familiar twinge at knowing how fragile he is compared to this not-human in his arms.  
  
"Are we still being honest with each other?" Cas asks, his mouth close to Dean's shoulder.  
  
"Yeah... I figured we kinda could be here on out."  
  
"Mm," the angel hums in agreement.  
  
"Did you... want to say something?"  
  
"I don't know if this is the time."  
  
"Like I said, time's pretty limited."  
  
Cas nods, then says quietly, "I do still love you, Dean.  I still don't need for you to reciprocate - and frankly it would be impossible for you to truly reciprocate as you exist on only one finite plane - but I felt you should know."  
  
He doesn't want Cas to say it out loud.    
  
Dean isn't the love type.  Or so he's told himself.  He can't think of a single time in the last ten years that he has said those three words together in that order, even when he should have.  He'd supply other sentiments that for him meant the same thing, but he just didn't use the L word unless he was talking about food or his car.  
  
People he loved left him.  
  
Cas unequivocally stating his affection now felt like a death nell.  It was all Dean could do not to throw him off and make him take it back.  
  
"Cas, come on," he said, laughing uncomfortably.  
  
The angel sighs quietly and Dean knows that he's disappointed.  
  
"I know," he says finally before pressing his fever-warm face into the hollow of Dean's shoulder.  His voice is muffled as he adds, "I know you."  
  
"Hey," he replies casually, "If I said I love you, would you give up that grace?"  
  
"You shouldn't bargain with things like that."  
  
It really hadn't seemed like such a dick thing to say in his head.  The hunter presses an apologetic kiss into his hair, shifting him closer so that they are in tight contact from hip to shoulder.  He doesn't say he's sorry, though he is.  
  
Honesty.  _Right_.    
  
Instead of thinking about what he should be saying, he focuses on how good it feels to hold his angel like this.  The solid body in his arms is comforting at a time when he needs comfort most.  Real when he needs things to hold on to.  Familiar when needs someone who knows him.  Sometimes it feels like the only people who are safe are the ones who don't get an introduction.  Somehow Cas was the last man standing in all of this, the last hold-out against the Winchester family curse.

Maybe it was just persistence.  It wasn't that Cas hadn't died in their service - he could think of three times that he knew that the angel had literally snuffed out, and two other times when he had really thought that he was gone for good.  Cas just didn't _stay_ dead; somehow the winged bastard found a way back to them.  To Dean, specifically.  
  
"You know, when this is over, you can pick out a room at the bunker.  Stay here with Sammy and me."  
  
Angels like words and phrases because they themselves are woven out of thought; Cas understands his meaning, but still craves the absolute that Dean just won't say.  He nods, raising his head to rest his chin on Dean's shoulder.  
  
"I love you," he repeats almost belligerently.  
  
Dean closes his eyes, leaning his cheek against the angel's mussed hair.  
  
"Yeah, I know.  Just don't leave, all right?"  
  



	4. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin and his dad hug it out. Dean confesses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anyone needs a warning, but there is one homophobic slur in this section.

Michael Tran looks to be just shy of thirty.  His hairstyle all but screams early nineties, and there is a coarse tuft sticking up in the back where his hair gel is definitively losing the battle against a persistent cowlick.  He’s wearing a crisp gray shirt and a slim-line pair of black slacks, a subconscious echo of what he’d been wearing when he’d first met Linda; his hands move fitfully down to smooth over the pockets of his trousers as though he’s checking to make sure that he hasn’t lost something.  
  
His body language is rigid and defensive as he looks over Kevin.  He repeats firmly, “Who are you?”  
  
“I’m…” Kevin begins, realizing that he isn’t entirely certain what he looks like to the other man or where exactly his consciousness is.  He casts about the restaurant for a mirror or some other reflective surface and is relieved to find that he looks much as he did shortly before his death, with the exception of having fully intact dark brown eyes.  He has never appreciated his eyes (and eyelids, eyelashes, and optic nerves) so much before.

Assured that he isn’t some eyeless apparition, he takes a quick breath and lets it out in a short puff.  His chest is surprisingly tight, though he is less emotional than he would have been without the preparation of dozens of Tran family memories.  Even so, he feels slightly teary-eyed and overstimulated and it is all he can do to hold still rather than rushing forward and grabbing his father to hug him.  He takes another breath, deeper this time and slightly shuddering, and meets the other man’s eyes.  
  
“I’m Kevin Tran, your son.”  
  
He sets his shoulders, waiting for his father’s reaction.  Despite when Michael might think that it is happening, and whether or not he knows that he has or would have a son, Kevin is positive that this is his father’s soul rather than a memory.  He feels different than other shadows that he’s encountered in heaven.  He can almost see a flicker of light within him, rather like the glow of an angel.  It's something that flickers pleasantly, warmly, like a candle flame; when he tries to focus on it, it fades back to the vaguest glow on the corners of his vision.  
  
“Kevin…” the other man says with some effort, pressing the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth in thought.  “You’re… not supposed to be here.”  
  
They both glance over in surprise when his mother lets out an excited squeal and pulls the ring out of the box.  She is reacting to the memory of the proposal, completely unaware of the two live souls in the room conversing without her.    
  
“Yeah… I know.  I should be in my own heaven--”  
  
“You shouldn’t be dead.”  
  
Kevin feels an uncomfortable twinge in his chest, “No, but I am.”  
  
Michael Tran looks over at the beautiful young facsimile of his wife, then back to Kevin.  He almost comments on his son’s resemblance to his mother at that age.  He wants to ask how old Kevin had been, but he doesn’t think that he can bear the answer yet.  Side by side, he can see his wife in the line of Kevin’s brow where it curves into his cheek, the fullness of his soft mouth, and the ready fire in his eyes.  She had always been the fighter, the spirited one, and it was the brilliance of her that had lit his life.  
  
With some effort, he walks carefully around one of the other tables to stand face to face with his son.  Lifting a steady hand, he catches tentatively on to Kevin’s arm and jerks him forward to wrap both arms around him.  
  
“Things aren’t quite right here,” he says, unable to focus too hard on any one aspect of this without dissolving into very unmanly sniffling, “I feel as though I have been gradually waking from dreams.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s heaven. Dreams. You relive all of your best moments,” Kevin replies tightly, hugging his dad fiercely.  Like Michael, mimicking him, he is trying to keep it all together.  However, he doesn’t let go.  
  
Neither does his father.  
  
“I… know.  I knew I was in heaven, but I didn’t realize I wasn’t actually with real people.  I’ve recently started to be able to feel the difference.”  
  
Michael pulls back minutely and nods in the direction of his new fiancee, who is chatting happily with his empty chair.  It is obvious that he finds the sight disconcerting, but he doesn’t explicitly say so.  He lets the moment linger between them, knowing that Kevin finds it exactly as jarring as he does.  
  
“That’s because things are kind of… messed up.  All of the angelic shepherds are gone.”  
  
The older man nods, releasing him though he keeps one arm lightly about his waist.  He looks over his son thoughtfully, noting his calm.  He intuitively knows and trusts Kevin’s knowledge of the situation, recognizing a strange strength within him.  He simultaneously wants to know and wants to hide from what his son might be and what he has suffered because of it.  
  
“Talk to me about it.  We can steal some other table’s dessert and make an evening of it.”  
  
Kevin is likewise surprised by how readily his father accepts his presence.  He nods quickly, “There’s kind of a lot.  Is mom here?”  
  
Michael shakes his head, “Only that version, in this memory anyway.”  
  
“She should be here.  You two… you’re soulmates.  You’d have connected memories.”  
  
The statement hits the elder Tran on several levels.  His first impulse is to search for her, hunt through their shared memories to find her.  Having been with some version of her for the last ten years, he hadn’t realized that he was lonely; however faced with another soul, he was suddenly aware that he missed the reality of her, the spark that glowed inside her that couldn’t be replicated by just going through the movements with a copy.  
  
Then he is struck by the meaning of what Kevin has said - Linda is _dead_.  He feels a surge of grief even as another part of him rejoices in their reunion.  Only that they hadn’t been reunited - he hadn’t found her at all.  He hadn’t felt her.  
  
“She’s… all right, that’s all right, Kev.  It means we can be together…”  
  
“Only she’s not here…” Kevin muses, his smooth brow furrowing in confusion.  He closes his eyes, thankful again for the ability to do so, and says, “Either she’s not in heaven… and she must be… or… she’s not dead.”  
  
“Did she die before you?”  
  
“I thought so…”

He knows that his father wants to ask, but he knows already that he can never tell him that his mother had been taken by demons and killed for the information in her cell phone. He isn’t sure if it’s worse that she might be dead or that she could be alive and in pain.  
  
He takes a deep, bracing breath.  He can tell him everything else.  Everything but that.  
  
“I think we should do the dessert thing, Dad.  I can tell you about it.  It’s hard to believe, but…”  
  
“I think there’s some chocolate mousse on one of these carts,” Michael says with a tight-lipped smile as he claps his son on the shoulder.

  
  
\--------------------

  
  
They’re finished talking now; Cas has told Dean everything, from what he had done to what it meant for Gadreel to be walking about in Sam’s skin.  There is only one reassurance that Dean is able to take from the discussion; Gadreel can’t just evict Sam’s spirit, so his little brother was still there if they can just figure out how to expel the angel.  
  
Castiel pushes Dean to sit on the edge of the bed, then kneels to untie his short boots.  His hands move smoothly as he works the laces loose enough to slip the boots off, his mind wandering to older times when handling someone else’s feet was an unquestionable act of love and humility.  Jesus had washed the feet of his disciples, Mary Magdalene had washed the feet of her savior and dried them with her long hair.  Castiel sets Deans boots just under the bed as Dean simply watches numbly.  
  
The angels kneels up to cup his face his hands before pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, the angle of his jaw, and then the center of his lips.  He lingers for a moment, then rests his brow against his lover’s and simply shares his breath.  
  
He unbuttons the hunter’s flannel and tugs it off, then peels him out of his t-shirt.  It isn’t late, but he’s determined that the man should sleep before taking on the next day’s ordeal; his own heavenly powers are limited, but these are small comforts that he can offer to Dean.  His over-warm hands move caressingly over the man’s chest and hips before unfastening the button and fly of his jeans.  
  
“Mm, hey there, angel,” Dean says softly, his tone quietly flirtatious.  The husky quality of his voice betrays his weariness, but he can’t leave the situation without at least one innuendo-laden remark.  
  
Castiel, still kneeling between his knees, raises his brilliant blue eyes to Dean’s face.  He smiles slightly, one side of his mouth hitching up unevenly.  
  
“Hello.”  
  
That’s the extent of the romance, though; the angel wordlessly strips him down to his boxers and tucks him into bed.  With the hunter watching him as though he might vanish at any moment, Cas removes his own coat and shoes.  
  
“More than that,” Dean tells him tiredly.  
  
For once, the angel doesn’t argue.  He methodically slips out of his clothes until he has achieved the same level of undress as Dean; there’s nothing inviting in his gestures, nothing like the strip teases that Dean sometimes half-jokingly imagined.  The movements are utilitarian and even, smooth the way that all of his movements are smooth, and in a moment he has slipped under the blankets beside the other man.  
  
They fit well together, Dean muses as he tugs Cas up against him firmly. Good sizes.  The angel’s body is soft-lined and slim; there’s an elegant, masculine gravity to his limbs and torso despite a lack of muscle definition.  Though there's more definition now, though, Dean observes, though it isn’t because his lover has been working out.  He feels a twinge of guilt recognizing that Cas’s vessel has lost weight during his time alone.  
  
“You should sleep,” Cas tells him quietly, lifting his hand to cradle the back of Dean’s neck.  He curves his fingers against his skin, taking care not to pull his soft hair when it catches between his fingers.  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean replies.  Despite that he is emotionally exhausted, he doesn’t feel like he will ever sleep again.  He keeps his eyes open.  His eyes burn against his eyelids when he closes them, which only serves to remind him of Kevin. He shifts slightly, then leans down to lightly kiss his lover’s mouth.  He doesn’t want to think anymore and he knows that Cas can make him forget for a few minutes.  
  
The shorter man closes his eyes belatedly, then leans into the warm contact almost gratefully.  He kisses him slowly, intentionally narrowing his consciousness to what he can experience through his vessel’s senses.  Dean’s body is solid against him, sturdily muscled and covered in scars.  Warm.  Familiar.  He slides his hands over the planes of his chest, tracing his breastbone with his fingertip and then dragging his fingers along the contours of his ribs.  
  
Dean sighs lightly as he pulls back from the kiss then eases close again to press his mouth to the angel’s jaw and neck.  
  
 _No, sleep._  
  
Cas reaches up and touches his brow, gently putting him to sleep.  
  
He shifts closer to him, his fingers stroking his hair and neck, down to his shoulder and upper arms.  It’s easy to just lie beside him, guarding him from bad dreams and bad creatures alike.  Normally he would curl his wings, unseen, about the human in his arms, but this time he doesn’t want the dirty feathers to have any contact with him.  If Dean could see him, the real him, he wouldn't want him so close.  He'd never want him again, Cas is certain.  Sighing shakily, he tucks his head under Dean’s chin.  
  
Dean wakes early and stays still, placing himself and the warm body in his arms.  Dean responds well to sleep; since adolescence, he has found that his mind does a pretty good job of sorting itself while he sleeps.  Even if he went to bed in a fit of anger, depression, or anxiety, he woke with a sleep-gauzed clarity that allowed him to greet the day with a small flicker of guarded optimism.    
  
As he identifies the over-warm form curled tightly against him, the weight of the previous day settles on him again.  Sam, Kevin.  Gadreel.  Crowley.  Confession.  Cas.  He feels fortified, though, and the almost tangible hardness in his chest, like his heart is forcefully beating beneath an armor of stone, makes him feel as though he can face the world.  He’s Dean Winchester and he can save them all this time.  
  
He is always vaguely uncomfortable with the knowledge that Cas lies awake beside him overnight, despite that his lover has assured him on numerous occasions that he perceives the time differently as an angel.  There had been a number of mornings when he'd woken to find Cas watching him or, more disconcertingly, staring right through him.  He rarely forgot that Cas was an angel, but he did frequently forget what that truly meant, both in terms of brain capacity and physical needs.  Cas didn't need sleep, hardly felt the passage of the night.  He could just wait for him.  It had actually been kind of nice when Cas had just fallen asleep in his arms as a human.  He'd been yielding and warm, different from the limp, overheated angel who is currently flattened against his chest. 

_Well, it is what it is._

He shifts slightly and murmurs, “Okay, Cas, I’m awake.”  
  
He’s surprised when there’s no response.  His brow furrows slightly as awkwardly lifts his head to look at his lover.  
  
Cas is _asleep_.    
  
He can count on one hand the number of times that he has seen the angel sleep, and none of them have been good times.  It speaks volumes to the extent of his companion’s illness to see his vessel, and the angel within, cradled in the arms of Morpheus.    
  
Dean lowers his head to the pillow and draws him closer, pressing a kiss to his feverish brow.   It’s different from a human illness, which was damp and clinging.  There is no perspiration, just heat. This feels like touching a door when the room on the other side is on fire.  He's aware again of how little he actually knows about angels when they're not in vessels; before this, he had thought that the only thing that could hurt them was a bit of enthusiastic perforation with an angel sword.  Maybe immolation by a bigger, badder angel.  Learning that they could get sick or die is new and unpleasant.  Thinking that Cas's body might be suffering the same deterioration as his wings makes Dean's stomach lurch.  
  
He resolves to let Cas sleep.    
  
He slides out of bed in the darkness, not remembering when they’d turned out the lights.  As he thinks about it, he doesn't remember settling in to sleep at all.  He reflects on that for a moment, trying to piece together the tail end of his evening instead of letting himself get mired in hopelessness. The last thing that he actually remembers is moving in on Cas, knowing he shouldn't but doing it anyway.  And hey, it hadn't been like the angel had pushed him off; Cas was always up for a bit of hunter on angel time.  Yeah, Cas has been into it, all wandering hands and warm mouth.  Until the little fucker, who was now so innocently dozing in his bed, had flipped the switch and that had been the end of that.    
  
 _That’s a freaking abuse of power, Cas,_ he grumbles to himself as he attempts to dress in the dark.  He suppresses a shiver and ignores the desire to climb back into the bed and wrap himself around his warm angel.  
  
More serious thoughts crowd in on him again, and by the time he’s managed to locate both boots his mind is focused in on his morning’s task.   He already knows which church will have a priest available to hear his confession and in his mind he’s already mapping out the early morning traffic.  There isn't time to linger on what he wants; there isn't even time to linger on all of the shit that happened.  All there is is what needs to be done.  
  
He hasn’t thought of what he’ll say.    
  
He tries _not_ to think of Sam asking him where to start.  He can’t stop himself from remembering his own response though.  _All right. Well, I'm just spit-balling here, but if I were you, uh... Ruby, killing Lilith, letting Lucifer out, losing your soul, not looking for me when I went to Purgatory…_  
  
It had been a dick thing to say, a cruel thing to say.  He'd known it at the time, but fuck, he'd said it anyway.  
  
Dean knows that he can be childishly cruel; it’s his worst trait.  He has a way of knowing exactly what will hurt someone the most; he gets his from his father.  And like his father, nothing stops him from letting it fly and feeling, God, _self-righteous_ while doing it.  He can think of hundreds of times when his father would lay out his faults in sharp, succinct jabs that took his breath away. 

 _Forgot the incantation, great, glad I can count on you.  Maybe if you could’ve shot straight, I wouldn’t have nearly gotten my arm ripped off.  Sharp end of the knife goes into the dead guy.  Nice shiner, Dean.  You watch where your eyes wander; no son of mine’s gonna be a god damned faggot.  Maybe you could at least try to act like you know something about hunting.  That one’s on you.  You remember that.  You_ think _about that._ _You could have gotten here five minutes earlier, you know, and maybe she’d still be alive.  You look like hell.  Where’d you learn to hold your liquor?  So help me I will_ leave _you here, Dean Winchester._  
  
Likewise, he can think of things that he’d said to Sam that he never should have even thought of, much less considered saying aloud.  Things that his father might have said if Sam hadn't been the favorite.  Things he never apologized for, even when he had been given a half-dozen second chances to do so.  This time, this time when they got Sammy back, this time would be different.  This time he is going to tell him that he is sorry, and then he is going to finally, finally fucking _let it all go_ and they are going to start over.  
  
Maybe that was what he should really confess.  He didn’t really feel so bad about selling his soul anymore and he was over the whole kickstarting the apocalypse thing.  Jo had forgiven him.  Pamela had said she was in a better place, really seemed to dig heaven.  He’d already done his penance for those things a million times over.  Lisa and Ben were better off without him. Benny had absolved him before he'd even done the deed.    
  
What he’d said to Cas the night before had felt like a confession, and the angel had _still_ told him that he loved him with vehemence verging on violence.  That sure seemed like forgiveness.  
  
That left Sam.   
  
He told the priest as much, haltingly at first but with mounting conviction.

 _Forgive me father, for I have sinned like you wouldn’t even friggin’ **believe**._  
  
It hadn't always been like that between them.  It hadn't really started until he began to feel his little brother pulling away from him, needing things that weren't the family that he had.  The family that Dean was.  They'd still been kids, really, and it had been more like lecturing than anything else.  _We've got each other, we've got Dad, we make a difference to people.  That's more than most people have._   It was _all_ Dean had; his entire life had been his father, his brother, and the steady growl of the Impala.  It hadn’t been happy, not exactly; if he were honest, it had at times verged on Stockholm Syndrome. 

He had disproportionately laid value on the only things he had.  That meant Sam, so when he decided to go to Sanford Dean had seen his meager world falling apart.  He’d watched Sam taking an escape that hadn’t been afforded to him.  There was no escaping the life.  He'd convinced himself that he didn't want to, that the reward was worth the cost.  He didn't actually want the things Sam had.  Not that John had let him think for a moment that he was smart enough to go to college; Dean had dropped out of high school, after all.  _You don’t even have a diploma, Dean.  You couldn’t apply if you wanted to._

Of course, though.  Sam was the smart one, the talented one, John’s obvious favorite, and everything came naturally to him.  And Dean was the blunt object, the pretender, the one who couldn't seem to catch a break.  Useless unless someone had a use for him.  

He speaks quickly, sketching out the image of their lives together. He makes a few skillful word changes, of course, so that the pastor won’t think he's just taking a piss, but the raw meaning is there.  He pushes on forcefully, for a moment letting himself get caught up in picking the mostly-healed scabs.  In revisiting these memories, it has become Sam’s fault again just because it is easier to be angry than hurt.  That was how it always is.  Rather than lingering on pain - which he feels more keenly than he ever lets on - he turns it to anger because that gives him strength.  It let him fight rather than simply curl in on himself.  Rot from the inside out.

How could he not be resentful, when Dean had spent his entire life shielding Sam from the brunt of John’s anger?  How could he not feel as though it was some sort of betrayal?  
  
How could he not be resentful when he went to Hell for Sam, then Sam chose a demon over him?  
  
How could he not be resentful when none of Sam’s best moments in heaven had included him?  
  
How could he not be resentful when Sam’s soulless self let him be turned into a monster, effectively ending his relationship with Lisa and costing him his one chance at a normal life?  
  
How could he not be resentful when Sam didn’t look for him in Purgatory and just shacked up with the first piece of tail that he found?  
  
He pauses for a moment after issuing these rhetorical questions.  He licks his lips, closing his eyes as he attempts to slow his racing heart by taking several deep, calming breaths.  The priest, who had finally fallen silent after realizing that he wasn't going to get a word in edgewise, pounces on the silence.  He asks him leading questions, but Dean hardly hears him.  He is struggling to pull this back to a confession rather than a diatribe.  Only one of the priests comments permeates the fog.

"This isn't his confession.  It's yours."

Dean nods to himself, taking a deep breath.  Yeah, this is just like him, just like everything that's wrong.  It's not a confession; it's Dean hurting Sam in absentia, using the voice on the other side of the screen as a proxy.  It's wrong.  It's everything he doesn't want to be anymore.  He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.  
  
“It’s not wrong that I was hurt by those things.  But he’s not a bad person, Sam, and I know he didn’t _do_ any of those things to hurt me.  It just happened. What’s not okay is me fucking - sorry Father - freaking browbeating him over stuff that happened years ago.  It's over.  I need to shut up.  I hate that I can't.  I hate that I freaking do it all the time, like it's my job to punish him so he won't do it again... like I'm God or Dad or something.  I said something horrible to him right before he did one of the bravest things I've ever seen him do.  _Anyone_ do.  And I know that part of it... part of it was because I was jealous that it wasn't me.  It was my job, y'know?  And he was doing it and I couldn't stop him and it freaked me out... and he just gave me this... this perfect opening.  And I just said it - that he had done a lot of bad stuff, screwed up everything.  Stuff he already knew and felt bad about.  And then later... he told me that his biggest regret was the times he'd disappointed me. Seriously.  The kid starts the freaking apocalypse but he feels bad about me. Me.  I'm a fucking - freaking - tool.  He had known all along and felt like crap over it.  And all I'd been doing was freaking shoving it back in his face every time.  Every time!  And I think we made up, I think it was okay... we were gonna be okay. But I don’t know.  Never had a chance to know, and I don't know how much he ever heard me after that… other… guy got into his head, messed him up.   That was my fault too.  I lie to him all the time and then I make him feel like crap when he lies to me.  I’m sorry about that.  I’m sorry for every time I’ve ever done it, made him feel like sh-crap because he made a mistake that I took personally.  I need to let that go.  I need to stop dragging him down, and y’know, I need to let him go if he wants to go.  I need to get over people not needing me as much as I need them.  My biggest sin is that I just can’t let anything go.”  
  
And there is it, laid bare.  
  
Dean Winchester carries every slight around with him, lets it eat at him until he’s consumed by it.  He’s gifted with details; he can readily recall minutia from a crime scene, he can draw sigils and symbols from memory when he’s only glimpsed them once, he can remember witness statements verbatim, he can recite everything in his father's journal.  It makes him a great hunter.  He also remembers every time that he has disappointed his father, every mistake that he has ever made.  Every time that Sam chose someone or something else over him.  Every time that someone lied to him. Every time that someone hurt him.  
  
And because he remembers, he wants to make sure no one else forgets.  
  
The priest gives him advice and recommends a penance.  
  
He feels oversensitized and the morning light in the parking lot seems overbright to his tired eyes.  He leans against the sun-warmed door of the Impala and closes his eyes, tilting his head back and simply taking a long draw of breath through his nose.  
  
He doesn’t feel better.  He had expected to feel lighter, unburdened.  Instead, he feels tired and surprisingly old.  
  
He wonders how Sam felt, if he had gone into the final trial feeling confident that he was pure enough to complete the rite.  Dean doesn’t know if he is, but he figures that he couldn’t possibly have dredged up all of that shit for nothing.    
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we get a bit of my Dean and John/Dean headcanons.
> 
> In my mind, John was always very critical of Dean; this is born out in the series, really. There are so many times when John just cuts him down with a single comment... and Dean just struggles to keep his expression level. Maybe even drops a "Yes, sir." Dean has self-esteem issues that he masks well with bravado and manliness. Deep down, he feels like he's only worth something when he can sacrifice something to help someone else, as though he only has value in conjunction with other people. By contrast, Sam has always been naturally bright with opportunities that just weren't available to his Dean. Because of this, Dean has always taken it poorly when Sam has tried to get away; he's always given up so much and he wants Sam to be such a part of his life. Likewise, after everything he's done for Sam, he's easily wounded when his baby brother chooses someone else over him or doesn't trust him enough to let him in to his confidences.
> 
> I also tend to see Dean as being a closeted bisexual. My particular headcanon is that John caught Dean checking out another guy and gave him a good beat down over it. John seems the type who would be homophobic and would be mortified that his son might be interested in men. Dean, as a result, overcompensates with women and cars and fighting ability to convince his dad (and everyone else) that he's as straight and manly as they come. At this point, John's been dead for quite awhile... but Dean is still afraid to really admit that he's okay with the fact that he's with a dude. It really isn't just that "it's okay because it's Cas"; he actually likes Cas's male vessel. But caring for and finding men desirable still doesn't mesh well with Dean's self-image.
> 
> Also, I wrote most of this after drinking half a bottle of wine, so I apologize for any tense or grammar slips.


	5. Corrupt/Incorrupt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas makes a discovery about Kevin's body. Gadreel continues on with Metatron's recruitment work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a warning for mention of informed consent issues surrounding the Reaper who slept with Cas. Please see the notes at the end for further explanation.

Castiel doesn’t remember falling asleep.  Finding himself alone and half-tangled in blankets confuses him, as does the groaning weight of his limbs.  It feels like being human again, bone weary and aching from cold, hunger, and travel.  Unaccustomed to waking from sleep, his feverish mind struggles to find purchase on the waking world but only succeeds in crafting a half-waking hallucination.  
  
He is halfway between memories.  He remembers the night that he came to the bunker, freshly restored and elated to be reunited with the Winchesters.  He remembers Dean’s hands and mouth on his skin, the feeling of his thighs against the sharp jut of Dean’s pelvis.  He remembers how it had felt when Dean drove the breath from him with each twist and roll of his hips, how Dean’s warm chest had felt against his palms, how the slick crush of Dean’s mouth on his own had been able to command the entirety of his attention.  He remembers thinking, just for a moment, that Dean would say that he loved him.  The arch of his spine as he came said everything, but the words remained unspoken.  
  
When they slept together that night, Dean didn’t know what he’d done with with April.  Cas hadn’t known to be sorry, hadn’t realized that he was now damaged goods, and hadn’t mentioned it.  No, it wasn’t until after they’d made love that the information casually came to light. He could tell that the news had stunned his lover even if he was powerless to do anything other than feign manly enthusiasm in front of Sam.  Shortly after, Dean told him to leave.  
  
It had been impossible not to make a connection between the events.    
  
On his own, on the road, he’d had a lot of time to think of April.  Well, not April.  A reaper wearing a dead woman's body.  When he wished for comfort in Dean's absence, he wished that her warmth had been real, or even her own. She was the first women he’d slept with, the first _person_ he’d slept with as a mortal man.  She’d been so welcoming, so generous; he would have done anything that she’d asked simply because she was kind and she was taking care of him.  He’d been a fool, hadn’t known any better.  He didn’t have any experience with normal relationships, only pornography and a very closeted Dean Winchester.  When she’d offered herself openly, he’d had leaned into her touch and let her guide him.  
  
It was only later, trying to fall asleep on the floor of the stock room at his gas station, that he had realized how pathetic he’d been.  The reaper, not April, had used him.  The reaper had used a pretty human body - killing the woman inside first - to prey on his inexperience and his desperation; he had needed comfort and she had supplied what all men wanted, a warm, compliant body and a soft voice.  In that moment, he had thought it was wonderful and he had almost fallen in love.  If it had been real, if it hadn’t been a play for information...  
  
 _He was pathetic._  
  
And dirty.  Despite the show he made to the contrary when the topic came up again at the bar, he didn’t feel good about what he did.  Thinking of how Dean had thrown him out afterwards, his useless human frailty and unchecked sexuality were inextricably linked.  
  
 _Don’t send me away,_ he thinks desperately, pressing his warm face into the pillow.  _I’m sorry I slept with her, I’m sorry I broke the world.  Please don’t send me away again, I promise I can be better.  I can be better for you.  Please, Dean._  
  
The smell of Dean’s shampoo helps him ground himself in the moment.  He gradually becomes aware that he is curled tightly, rather desperately, around the pillow.  Realizing that he is no danger of being evicted because _Dean isn’t even here_ , he forces himself to pull a thready breath even though his body doesn’t need it.  
  
More coherent now, he dismisses his recollections of not-April and the night that he’d last left the bunker with a shattered human heart.  He doesn’t forgive himself for his weakness, but he pushes the memory back.    
  
Physical sensation presses forward. Lying there, the enormity of his illness occupies every part of him.  The weight is staggering.  He has died before, willingly.  He has placed himself between the things he loves and the things that would destroy them, letting them destroy him instead.  This is different.  Those deaths were quick and active; they were a soldier’s sacrifice.  This was a slow, painful degradation suitable for the thief that he was.  
  
Even if he deserves it, it scares him.

  
He pushes back the pain and sits up slowly, his eyes seeking out the glowing red face of the alarm clock in the dim room.  It’s already almost nine and he knows that he has overslept Dean’s confession.  
  
He rises to his feet and dresses with a thought, determined to maintain his self-imposed stoicism even when he is alone.  He is strong, he is independent.  Even with an empty heaven and an absent God, he is still a soldier of the Lord.  He looks in the mirror mounted on the back of the door and is repelled by his own haggard reflection.  
  
This morning he will tend to Kevin’s body so that Dean does not have to.  His steps are heavy as he walks out into the hallway and his thoughts are on everything except the task at hand.  
  
Pressing open the closed door, he walks to the bed and lightly rests his hand on Kevin's still chest in silent communion.  
  
He is about to lift the body into his arms when his senses sharpen.  Under the flat of his palm, there is an unnatural stillness.  An almost unsettling lack of change.  With a strange, slowly building curiosity, he pulls back the sheet to look at Kevin 's face.  
  
Castiel has no doubt that the young man is dead.  The rise and fall of his chest has ceased and there is not even the faintest flicker of consciousness with him.  The warm, butter-gold light of his soul is absent.  What is unusual is that his body is limp and even-colored as though he is simply sleeping.  If not for the lidless, burned-out sockets, it would be easy to mistake his state for exhaustion-induced unconsciousness.    
  
The angel realizes belatedly that there is no scent of putrefication, not even the slight-sweet initial note of death.  The blankets about him are clean and unsoiled.  For all intents and purposes, his body is unchanged from the previous evening. Castiel knows intuitively that it will never change.  
  
"Incorrupt," Castiel breathes, touching Kevin's smooth cheek lightly.  
  
St. Bernadette of Lourdes had rested, unchanging and beautiful in death, for over a hundred years, incorruptible.  St. Vincent de Paul since 1660.  St. Silvan for almost 1,600 years.  All preserved, unchanging, as a sign of their faith and a reminder to others to remember their strength.  
  
In the absence of angels, Castiel can only ascribe Kevin's condition to an act of God.  
  
The angel presses his hand to his chest and feels his vessel's heart beating faster.  He watches Kevin's still face for a moment longer, then leans forward to rearrange the prophet's limbs into a posture of repose.    
  
He reaches deep into himself for strength, then lays his hand over Kevin's face.  Exerting his stolen powers burns him and makes his skin feel tight, but when he pulls his hand back, The corpse's eyes are round and damp beneath his smooth, soot-smudged lids.  
  
Slightly winded, the angel nearly falls back a step.    
  
"Sleep in peace, Kevin Tran, Prophet of The Lord."

  
\-----------------

  
  
It is a balmy night in California as two angels are stand barefoot on a La Jolla beach, regarding the star-swallowing waves ruffling the black surface of the Pacific Ocean.  It is low tide and they have walked down the shell-glittered slope to find the line of the receding waves.  
  
Their vessels don't fit them well.  They're tight, like poorly fitting suits, and they don't accommodate the angels coiled tightly within them.  It's only a matter of time before they will break down, stretched too thin, and they will need to move on again.  
  
They're unlucky angels; the bloodlines that were made to hold them specifically had died out thousands of years ago.  But being quiet guardians, they hadn't given much thought to the loss until they were left homeless.  
  
Idriel reaches his hand out to touch his brother's wrist, absently taking comfort in the contact as he watches the waves.  They'd tended to them before the fall, the deep waters.  Before man, before heaven, they had put their designs upon the fish and sculpted the deep sea terrain into mountains and miraculous volcanoes that had risen islands and begotten life in their heated trenches.  
  
"I want to be able to talk to you without speaking," he says quietly, "I want to go home."  
  
Turning his hand to clumsily catch the other angel's, Saiphael just nods in silent agreement.    
  
A rustle of wings heralds the arrival of another angel.  Immediately, the brothers turn in almost-unison with their swords drawn.  
  
Both jerk back in shock, first at the sight of Sam Winchester's massive form, and then in recognition of an angel whom they had never met but already knew to fear.  
  
"Gadreel," Saiphael breathes, easing back a step toward the slowly rising tide.  
  
Gadreel raises his hands, smiling slightly.  His vessel's expression is earnest and slightly concerned; somehow, some of Sam Winchester's previous warmth echoes through his features, giving the angel a surprising, credible warmth, "Do not be afraid, my brothers!  I come with a message of peace."  
  
Idriel moves forward to place himself between the other two angels.  His meaning is clear.  
  
"On what would you swear to that fact?  Your honor?  We know you, Gadreel, even if we have never met."  
  
The words wound him and the pain is written cleanly in his eyes.  There is no surprise, however; these are not the first of his younger siblings that he has approached on Metatron's orders, nor are they the first to address his fall from favor.  
  
"I have come to extend an invitation from Metatron."  
  
"Metatron!" Idriel breathes in quickly rising anger, his wings vibrating slightly, "The same Metatron who cast us out, killing hundreds of us in the fall?"  
  
"Yes," Gadreel replies uncomfortably.  He is a good soldier, though, a creature who devotes himself fully to his cause. He continues earnestly, "Where Malachi and Batholomew would attempt to recreate heaven on earth, Metatron will reshape ourheaven into the paradise that it was intended to be.  He will open the gates to those who are loyal to him--"  
  
"We are not loyal to the scribe," Saiphael says with unexpected sharpness from behind his brother, "Heaven is the province of God, and it is only to God that I will bow.  Didn't we see that there is no replacement for our father after even the noble Castiel failed?  Metatron is not God, cannot be God and may his ambition burn the grace from his body."  
  
He steps forward, now side by side and hip to hip with his brother.  Idriel just stares for a moment at him, awed by and terrified of his defiance.  Saiphael, the quiet guardian of the intelligent, soft-bodied creatures of the deep, blazes brightly with his luminous wings catching and reflecting the reflections of light off the water.  
  
Gadreel feels wonder and sorrow at the glory of Saiphael's devotion.  
  
"Your decision is absolute?"  
  
"Saiphael..." Idriel whispers harshly, begging.  
  
"Yes," the short-bodied angel affirms.  
  
 _You don't have to do this._  
  
The thought is unbidden and surprising to Gadreel.  It's forceful, vehement, and comes from deep within him.  
  
 _This is wrong and you know it.  These are good angels, noble angels, and you are wrong to strike them down for fidelity to your father._  
  
He realizes that his hands are clasped together and he is pressing the scar on his palm very tightly.  He stares at his hands for a moment, and then with some great force of will brings an archangel's shining sword to his hand.  
  
"And you, Idriel?"  
  
Idriel draws strength from his brother's defiance.  He'd always thought himself the protector and decision maker, but now realizes that Saiphael was always guiding him.  Brothers born in the roll of a wave, baptized in the crash of roiling foam.  
  
"The same."  
  
Gadreel's disappointment cuts him deeply.  
  
"Your conviction is admirable, my brothers.  Your loyalty moves me more than you can ever understand."  
  
Saiphael meets his eyes levelly, informing him quietly, "If you do this, if you ally yourself with Metatron as he renames himself God, you will burn beside him in a cage as deep as the one belonging to Lucifer himself."  
  
 _You don't have to do this!_ he tells himself again, this time more forcefully.  He is gripping his sword hard enough for the hilt's detailing to bite a pattern into his palm. _Stop, just leave them._  
  
Two flashes of blue blaze in the night, washing the beach in light.  
  
Metatron looks at Gadreel with obvious disappointment in his expression.  His sword drips with blood as he looks down at the two angels whose wings have smote broad, sweeping patterns onto the sand.  
  
"You can't let them scare you," the scribe said mildly, his eyebrows lifting skeptically as he leans down to clean the blade in the whispering salt water, "And you mustn't disappoint me, Gadreel.  Your place in the garden will not be assured until you have completed my work.  
  
Gadreel is about to reply when the other angel vanishes in one judgmental wingclap.    
  
He stands on the damp sand for a long time.  HoursIt might be hours.  He watches the tide crawl upward, dragging the burned outline of their wings out to sea grain by grain as though it is simply rubbing out a drawing.  He waits as the ocean quietly reclaims two of its guardians, two of its loving protectors, by pulling their still forms below the waves.  
  
 _This was wrong._  
  
He rubs the scar on his palm thoughtfully, consciously, as he walks through the rising waves.  He wonders if the two angels ever saw Metatron behind them, or if they had died with Gadreel's name on their lips.  
  
 _We knew it was wrong._  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Few notes on this chapter.
> 
> I really hated the April thing in-show, on many levels mostly relating to cishet gender roles and systematic misogyny. Simply, I found that story arc offensive. 
> 
> My personal headcanon is that Reapers don't possess living bodies - they instead kill the host before taking them over. This isn't supported or contradicted by the episodes, though I think there's enough evidence in the show to make an argument for it; April is always referred to in past tense by her Reaper and the very nature of a Reaper doesn't seem like it's too conducive to leaving the people its touches alive. Therefore, for the purposes of this fic human April was dead and the Reaper was the sole occupant of that body. It makes me feel better about both Cas sleeping with Reaper!April and Dean and Sam torturing and killing that other Reaper. I am not excusing the misogyny of April's presentation or purpose in the actual episode, but I simply don't want to think that there are people still in those bodies, particularly aware of what is happening to them. So I'm removing that issue for the purposes of this story. That's all I'm going to say on the April side of the sex thing.
> 
> On the Cas side, I was also bothered by the fact that Cas was essentially the victim of sexual predation. There was never any acknowledgement of the fact that the Reaper preyed on his inexperience and his compromised situation to get him into bed... I don't believe that Cas's position and experience (especially without knowing what she was) allowed him to give informed consent. Yet the show plays it up entirely as "Hey, Cas got laaaaaaid." I think that with some introspection, Cas would come to feel ashamed of having been taken advantage of by the Reaper, and in particular he would have felt as though his sexuality had made him weak or vulnerable. Especially with Dean kicking him out so shortly after with no explanation! And with Dean and Cas being lovers in my fic, I think Cas would have linked his sexual experience with Dean's rejection (and basically taken it as indirect slutshaming). 
> 
> So anyway, this is something that I wanted to touch upon in this section. I'm sorry if this reading makes anyone uncomfortable.


	6. Half-light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean attempts to finish what Sam started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for two days without an update - this one (plus the holiday!) really took it out of me. :)

Crowley wakes with a jerk, shaking violently as another nauseating roll of pain works its way from his chest to his extremities.  His body feels human and weak, tired.  He overwhelmed by the maddening sensations of dehydration and hunger, but he knows it will pass shortly.  
  
He never spends long enough on this side of the fence to die from deprivation, only enough to suffer.  His skull is splitting with a headache focused over his right eye and he is acutely aware of how sitting bound to a chair for months on end has caused his body to atrophy and ache. His throat is so dry that he can barely swallow and there is hardly moisture on his tongue enough to wet his parched lips.  
  
The worst is his mind.  He could handle the muscle pain and dizzying hunger if he didn't have a human conscience bearing down on him and demanding explanations for what he's done.  Even if it was the meat suit's original owner getting a little uppity, he could tune that out.  But, nope, this is good old Fergus, wondering how they had come to this point.  
  
One didn't simply walk into Mordor, no.  While he may have bartered away his mortal soul on a self-pitying whim while drunk, he had risen to his position in Hell through craft and skill; he was a good demon, and what was more, he had enjoyed his work.  Noshing on babies and masterminding the downfall of countless other human souls had made his second life worth living. Misery loving company didn't cover it because Crowley hadn’t been miserable - he had loved every moment of being King of the Crossroads and later King of Hell.  
  
However Fergus, the man he was and might become again, is horrified.  He asks himself over and over how he could do the things he'd done, and he can find no other explanation than context and demonology.  Neither of these are consolation to his human mind, which unfortunately has both his demon knowledge and his human heart.  Crowley has spent hours alone in the dark, tears soaking into his beard, as he demanded answers of himself that he couldn't provide.  
  
But this time, as others, he feels the man fading back and the demon blood rising up again.  The physical pain dulls to a more manage burning sensation in his veins, the hunger passes, and the emotional voice in his head falls silent.  He is Crowley again.  
  
Breathing hard, he rolls his shoulders and tries to regain complete control over himself.  He is aware that his shirt is damp with sweat and the physical sensation disgusts him.  He hears the door and schools his features into a haughty, smirking mask.  
  
"Hello, pigeon," he says musically as Castiel walks into the room.  He drops his chin and looks seductively up at the angel through surprisingly long lashes, "You’re looking absolutely fetching this morning.  Really, you’ve got a certain _glow_ to you.”  
  
The angel doesn’t reply as he walked over to pack a few items from a cabinet into a bag.  Irritated, Crowley prods, “Must be that grace shining through the holes its putting in you.”  
  
Again, no response.  
  
“So, where will you go when you die?"  
  
Castiel just looks at him wearily.  Crowley, who perceives veiled flickers of his true form, notes that his condition is slightly worse than the previous night.  In a strange moment, likely a hangover from his recent bout of humanity, Crowley almost feels sorry for him as he realizes that the angel is as sick as he is.  
  
But he is still the greater part demon and a little bit of empathy isn’t going to stop him from goading him on, especially when he is looking for information.  He doesn't care where the angel is going to pop off to once he rots away to nothing; he's more interested in his own mortal fate, though he keeps his tone casual.  
  
"And while we're at it, where will I go?  The same oblivion as the angels?"  
  
"You?" Cas asks in surprise.  
  
He wanders closer and rests against one of the workbenches.  The topic interests him and engages his angelic mind, which allows him to excuse himself for conversing with the demon.  He muses aloud, "Demons are forged from human souls twisted and broken in Hell... which means that no matter how tarnished it may be, you have a soul.  On death that soul will follow the paths offered to all human souls."  
  
"So Hell."  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"This seems mighty counterproductive then," Crowley says shortly, laughing humorlessly, "As I'll be right back to being a bloody demon again in no time."  
  
"Your soul will be purified by the rite," Castiel reasons aloud, "Effectively wiping the slate and allowing you to start over."  
  
"I've done a lot of truly horrific things," the demon says almost proudly, "My post-grad work makes the lifetime of drinking and whoring seem like piety."  
  
The angel looks at him thoughtfully, his blue eyes intense despite his fatigue.  
  
"Your purification has also been considerably longer and more arduous than the brief hours prescribed for a common demon."    
  
"And?"  
  
"I'm not a fool, Crowley; I see you as clearly as you see me. You're in agony."  
  
The demon dislikes the insight that Castiel has just claimed to have into him; he almost squirms in discomfort, but forces himself to remain still.  He raises his chin slightly, smirking in a superior way.  
  
"Well, my flightless little bird, we _do_ know each other rather well, don't we?"  
  
He chuckles, but Castiel just cuts him down with a look.  Crowley changes tack, his voice going softer, lower.  It’s sharp but lacks fire.  
  
"And what then?  Will I confess and be absolved?  Will the King of Hell be handed a harp?"  
  
"The ordeal of your absolution will be yours to bear."  
  
"All sunshine, aren't we?" Crowley snaps.  That’s enough.  Partly in curiosity and partly to strike back at one of his captors, he asks smoothly, "But you didn't answer my question - where will you go?"  
  
Castiel looks at him a moment, then licks his lips in a very human way before shaking his head.  
  
"It is not known.  Most believe that... that angels are immortal and death is only a change in form.  We live on as energy is dispersed into the stars and our consciousness joins the heat and light of the universe."  
  
"You don't believe this?"  
  
"Even if it is true, this grace is consuming my angelic body and will dissolve my consciousness; there will be nothing left.  I will simply cease to exist."  
  
"Or you could just expel it."  
  
"No."  
  
The conversation, though brief, has already gone on too long for the demon.  He is suddenly uncomfortable with the knowledge that his adversarial angel will be nothing more than a dead, hollowed out human vessel in a week's time.  That vessel will rot, its original soul long since left for heaven, and then there will be nothing left to show that the angel had ever existed.  He isn’t certain if it is because their history has given him a sort of backhanded fondness for the extremely literal angel or if it is because the part of him that is human feels some sense of compassion, but the result is that he no longer wishes to discuss this.  
  
He shifts impatiently in his chair, wanting a subject change.  
  
"Where is your boyfriend?"  
  
"He's loading the car.  I imagine that he'll be down momentarily."  
  
Crowley doesn’t even bat an eyelash at Castiel’s lack of denial; the angel never even seemed to catch that he was implying something unsavory.  Of course he wouldn’t; Castiel doesn’t view homosexuality as anything other than a state of being, and in any case, the angel doesn’t identify himself as belonging to the same gender as the elder Winchester.    
  
The demon remembers when he first realized that his jibes were founded in truth.  He also remembers how easy it had been to read Castiel’s distress during their brief alliance, and how much he’d enjoyed needling him.  _The stench of that Impala’s all over your overcoat, angel._ Cas knew what he meant, that Crowley knew he'd been pressed up against those leather seats.  And then he’d get the kicked puppy face, and not because Castiel was shamed, no, but because he pined for his mortal pet.  Crowley’d loved that.  Loved watching the angel’s pain as he lied to his lover and alienated himself from his friends.  Loved. It.  
  
He smiles broadly as Dean walks into the dungeon with a duffle slung over his shoulder and a cloth sack in his hand.  The man’s posture is no-nonsense and his expression is grim.  Crowley can see that Dean has had a rough morning based on the circles under his eyes and the set of his unshaven jaw, and he can’t help but feel a thrill of pleasure at his well-concealed misery.  
  
“Good morning, darling.  Feeling all shiny and new?”  
  
The hunter spares him a look, then crosses the space between them to slip the bag over his head.  
  
Muffled, Crowley asks, “Is this really necessary?”  
  
“Yep,” Dean answers shortly.  He pauses to hand the duffle bag to the angel beside him, then sets about switching Crowley’s chains to ones that are better suited to travel.  With that accomplished, he hauls him to his feet and half-drags him out of the room.  
  
He knows that it would be easier to have Cas just poof them them to the abandoned church, but he doesn’t want to tax his companion’s strength.  Over the years he has become aware that Cas doesn’t simply vanish in one place and appear in another - instead, it is simply that his own eyes and mind are not fast enough to process the angel’s movements as he takes flight and slides through the spaces between molecules.  Given the state of his wings, he wants to minimize the amount of time that Cas is in the air.  
  
The car ride is mostly quiet; Cas isn’t known for being talkative and Dean is pointedly ignoring Crowley’s quips and questions.  Knowing that the demon can’t see them, Cas reaches across the bench of seats to lightly touch Dean’s hand on the steering wheel. It isn’t much, but the warm contact breaks him from his fog of intense concentration.  He glances over at the angel and gives him a quick, tight smile.  
  
When they are close to their destination, Castiel perks up slightly before vanishing.  
  
“Goddammit Cas,” Dean hisses.  
  
“Your winged friend pop off?” Crowley asks interestedly, knowing already that he has.  
  
Dean doesn’t answer.  
  
“Maybe he just needed a little bit of air,” the demon muses, slouching back comfortably in the back seat, “To deal with his impending cessation of existence.”  
  
“Shut up, Crowley.”  
  
“Ah, that’s the first thing that’s gotten so much as a peep out of you.  Bit concerned about your little--”  
  
“I said shut up.”  
  
Dean looks up at him in the rear view mirror.  Even though Crowley’s face is obscured by a thick layer of fabric, he feels like he can see him smirking.  He pushes his shoulders back and forces him to loosen his death grip on the steering wheel.  
  
“He’s not going to give it up.  That Grace, I mean,” he says with an obscene chuckle that he knows will nettle the hunter in the front seat.  “He’s going to let it eat him away til-”  
  
“You telling me this for a reason?” he cuts in sharply.  There’s an undercurrent of barely controlled violence in his tone; if Crowley wasn’t already burned out on pain and half-wanting to die, he’d have been scared.  
  
As it stands, though, he isn’t.  Dean’s obvious frustration only serves to fan the demonic fire in him.  The part of him that enjoys torment perks up, silencing the quieter voice that had been contemplating helping the unfortunate angel.  
  
“I just thought you ought to know.  So you could prepare yourself for _really_ being alone.  You know, with your brother possessed, your prophet dead - both your fault, by the way - and all of your friends of past years dead in your servi-”  
  
Crowley is startled when the muzzle of Dean’s gun contacts with his cheekbone with force enough to put a crack in the bone.  It hurts, but distantly; it’s more of a buzzing irritation than anything else.  
  
“Ow,” Crowley comments mildly, adding as an afterthought, “How did you even do that without crashing the car?”  
  
“Listen up, you sonuvabitch,” the other man replies sharply, “You just remember that you’re gonna be human in about 8 hours.  That might not have hurt so much now, but you think about what that’s gonna feel like when you can’t just disconnect with those nerves.  You think about what it’s gonna be like to have that body for the rest of your damn life, and then _you think about if you really want to piss me off_.”  
  
It was, admittedly, a topic that Crowley hadn’t considered too thoroughly.  He had been more concerned about the fact that his human mind was likely going to implode under the weight of contemplating centuries of out and out evil; he hadn’t thought about the fragility of his human body.  
  
He sets his jaw, feeling the bone in his cheek shift minutely.  Unpleasantly.  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“ _Fine_ ,” Crowley repeats petulantly.  
  
After a few more moments of horrible silence, Castiel reappears in the front seat.  His hair is wind-mussed the way that Dean likes it best, but he is flushed and slightly winded.  The color in his cheeks makes his eyes seem brighter.  
  
“There are no demons within two miles in any direction.  I have placed the appropriate wards on the building and-”  
  
“And now you’re going to sit your ass down and take it easy for the next eight hours,” Dean says tightly.  
  
The angel looks at him for a moment, surprised by his vehemence, then turns unsubtly in his seat to look at the demon behind them.  He’s not stupid; he knows that Crowley said something that wound Dean up tighter even than he was before and it makes him angry.  He turns back to face forward and doesn’t reply.  He dislikes being talked about and intuitively knows that he was the topic of conversation.  
  
Dean, in the silence, wonders if he offended his companion by being snappish.  However, it isn’t something that he’s going to contemplate too hard.  He wouldn’t even consider apologizing for it because he isn’t sorry; he meant every word of it.  
  
From the back, Crowley snickers at their obvious tension and Dean glares at him in the rear view mirror.  
  
When they pull up at the church, Dean lets Cas carry the bag while he pulls Crowley, stumbling, into the building.  It’s a different church than their previous attempt, but it’s in approximately the same condition.  The walls are discolored and strips of paint are peeling downward from the ceiling.  Anything of value has been taken, either by the church officials or later vandals, and the interior is sparse and drafty.  
  
Once he has secured the king of Hell to his temporary throne, a folding chair painted in devil’s traps, Dean finally removes the sack from his head.  He is a little surprised by the smear of blood on his cheek where the pistolwhip split the skin, but it is a pleasant surprise rather than a shock.  Like finding out that the raisins in the oatmeal cookies are actually chocolate chips.  
  
“So,” Crowley says in a soft, low voice, “Are you going to continue giving me lustful looks or are we going to get this started?”  
  
“Right.  Well,” Dean says walking over to one of the pews where Castiel has laid out everything that they would need.  He smirks as he pierces his arm with the syringe and lets the blood fill the glass tube, absently trying to calculate how many gallons of blood he and his brother have given to this job in the last ten years.  It still hurts every time, but he's learned to do it without flinching or looking away. His palms and forearms are covered with scars from seemingly constant blood rituals and sigils and he can’t help but wonder how differently he’d look now if he’d never been a hunter.  
Right.  
  
Well.  
  
With that accomplished, he walks over to Crowley and stands before him with the syringe in hand, “So, I give you the first dose and you spill.  You give us the real translation of that spell. Deal?”  
  
“I can’t exactly shake on it,” Crowley replies drily.  
  
“If you’re good on your word, I’m good on mine.”  
  
The demon pauses.  He feels that human blood prickling in the back of his ribs and knows that soon it will reach his heart again.  In his current state, he doesn’t know that he will be able to keep himself in check if he has one of these switches right in front of Dean Winchester.  Without further hesitation, he nods sharply, “Yes, Dean.  Yes, I give my word.  Now get on with it.”  
  
He compliantly tilts his head to the side as Dean administers the syringe to the side of his neck.  
  
He waits, closing his eyes as he feels the human blood moving through his veins.  It cools the heat and clears his head, but it doesn’t feel like thousands of bursts of light.  He waits, tilting his head back and rolling his shoulders, trying to prompt the strangely gratifying ache that Sam’s blood had given him during the trial.  
  
He doesn’t feel better.  He had expected to feel lighter, unburdened.  Instead, he feels tired and surprisingly old.  
  
He opens his eyes slowly and says, deathly quiet, “This is wrong.  You didn’t confess.”  
  
Dean looks surprised, “What?”  
  
“ _You didn’t fucking confess_!” Crowley snaps furiously.  
  
“I did!” the hunter replies, surprised at first.  With sudden anger, his hands balling into fists, he argues, “I just got back from the goddamn church!”  
  
“Then you didn’t do it right,” he hisses, “You didn’t confess everything.  This blood is only half-clean, you moron.  Can’t you do anything?  What kind of bloody… _fuck up_ can’t even confess properly?”  
  
More than Crowley’s words, the weight of impurity sits suddenly heavily on Dean’s chest.  He struggles to draw a deep breath as Crowley continues to rant, half-mad, from his tethered seat.  The world, however, seems to dim at the edges and the sound of the wind outside overwhelms everything else. _You didn’t do it right.  You aren’t forgiven._

He jumps when Cas lays a hand lightly on his upper arm.  His hand is too warm; Dean can almost feel the heat glowing through the sleeve of his coat.  It gives him a fresh surge of panic and makes the situation, and Crowley’s raving, seem even more overwhelming.  
  
“Dean,” the angels says, his voice soft and close to his jaw, “Did you confess everything?”  
  
“Yeah…” Dean nods numbly, “All the important stuff… the stuff that was still weighing on me, the… unforgiven stuff.”  
  
“What did the priest say?”  
  
“Ah, he said the usual forgiveness crap.  He said that I was forgiven and to go forth and don’t do that shit again…”  
  
“You know,” Crowley said, his voice acid, “Sam confessed to _an empty bloody box_ and he still got it right.”  
  
Dean closed his eyes and lifted his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.  Sam had confessed to no one at all and it had worked.  Of course it had, he was Sam Winchester.  He could do anything he attempted, where Dean could just keep trying and keep trying and still probably fuck up.  Of course it worked for Sam.  All Sam had to do was believe he could do something and he could do it.  Because Sam was fucking perfect, he really was.  No sarcasm at all, the kid was just about the best he'd ever seen.  
  
He exhaled slowly, trying to tune out Cas and Crowley arguing in front of him.  Cas’ voice was starting to get a bit smite-y, even though he hadn’t raised it a single decibel above his normal volume, and Crowley was turning oily and vitriolic.  Truly nasty, the stuff of demonic legend.  However, there was a subtle, rising desperation that his harsh words couldn’t mask.    
  
He had to tune them out.  
  
Sam had believed he was pure.  
  
Dean hadn’t.  
  
Dean didn’t really believe that he had been forgiven because he didn’t believe that it was a priest’s authority.  Some padre sitting pretty in a church couldn’t speak for Sam, even less than Dean had had any right to speak for him to allow Gadreel into his body.  The only person who could absolve Dean of his trespasses against Sam was Sam himself.  
  
He let out a slow, steady breath, then said, “Okay.”  
  
“Okay?” Crowley queried, raising his thin eyebrows, “Okay?”  
  
“ _Okay_ ,” Dean repeated, “I got it.  I figured it out.  You said it yourself, Crowley, Sam confessed to an empty box-”  
  
“So what, you’re going to go confess to one too?”  
  
“No.  Sam forgave himself, he purified his own blood.  No one else was there,” Dean licked his dry lips, “I can’t forgive myself for what I did, so no priest telling me I’m all sparkly clean is going to make a difference.  The only person who can forgive me is Sam.”  
  
Crowley laughs outright, then groans as he realizes the truth of what Dean has said.    
  
“You fucking… _codependent little cock-ups_.”  
  
Dean smirks, reaching up and rubbing at his eyes briefly.  They’re dry.  He’s pretty much all out, and at this point the hard knot in his chest doesn’t feel as though it’s ever going to loosen.  
  
“So what do you want to do, Dean?”  Castiel asks, meeting his eyes levelly.  He looks between Dean and Crowley, suddenly feeling the press of time working against them.  If Dean is unable to fulfill his side of the bargain, Crowley won’t fulfill his.  Without the translation, he would be unable to reverse the spell; it sealed his fate while rendering his own sacrifice useless.  
  
His expression doesn’t betray the icy plunge that his heart has just taken as he looks intently at his lover, but Dean knows what he is thinking.  He can feel that the angel is relying on him and he feels the weight of that obligation in addition to every other.  
  
He clears his throat and says, “Well.  I think we’re going to need to renegotiate this deal.  New deal, right.”  
  
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, “I promised that I would cure you and I’m going to.  But I’m gonna need a bit of a… raincheck on it.”  
  
Crowley looks at him, unamused, “So you’re expecting me to put out without payment?  Come on, Dean, you could at least buy me dinner first.”  
  
“Look, it’s not that I’m trying to get out of it.  And hey, I gave you the first injection.  We never agreed that it had to work.”  
  
Crowley thought over the terms of their agreement, which had been exceptionally loose in terms of wording.  _I dose you up with my blood, I give you the first treatment, I give you the first dose._ Cure had not been explicit in their agreement, so Dean was correct in that assertion and he had, technically, held up his end of the bargain to the extent where Crowley was obligated to give information.  
  
His demon blood must have truly weakened to allow that sort of slip in contracting.  
  
“If we’re playing on technicalities, I will give you the true translation in a demonic tongue that even your feathered friend doesn’t understand.  You never specified that the translation had to be given in a language that you know, only that it needed to be accurate.”  
  
Dean chews his lower lip briefly and says, “Look, I’m going to cure you.  But I can’t do it yet-”  
  
“And may never be able to,” Crowley hisses.  
  
“No, I will-”  
  
“Forgive me if I don’t have the same faith in your unstoppable powers of love. I want something guaranteed.  My translation into a language that you can understand, hell I’ll even be generous and specify English.  In exchange, you will either cure me or release me within one week.  Also, if you do not cure me, I will take as much of your blood as I wish on leaving.”  
  
“Fine, yeah.  Sure,” the man agreed readily.  
  
“And as a sign of good faith, I want six syringes of your blood and my hands free so that I can use them at my leisure,” Crowley says.  
  
Dean is less comfortable with that, but knows that he has no alternative.  Even though he would like to just stab Crowley in the face with Ruby’s knife, he knows that Castiel’s death is guaranteed without the translation.  He isn’t willing to even consider losing the angel, even if a nagging part of him continues to point out the inevitability of everything going horribly, horribly wrong.  
  
“It’s a deal.”  
  
Crowley nods to him, “Not much point in sticking around here then, is there?”  
  
Dean looks around the empty church and says, “No… I guess not.”


	7. It Falls Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abaddon unbalances Hell. Gadreel gets a bit weird. Kevin begins to lose focus.

As a rule, Abaddon isn’t too keen on angels.  She rather likes the idea of roasting the wings right off of them and carving out their creamy centers with their own little seraphic butter knives.  However, there is also a simple fact to keep in mind, and that is that Lucifer is also an angel and fallen angels can be a hell of good time.  
  
And it was with that mindset that she first began to approach the angels.  
  
It’s not bargaining, not really.  It’s more like seduction; it’s alternately scaring them and comforting them.  It’s not as hard as it should be; the setup is nearly perfect.  Demonic alliances hardly seem much more risky than shacking up with either of the major players in the angelic civil war;  any choice they make might lead to a painful death, so Abaddon makes sure that her proposal comes with the biggest, safest payoff.  
  
Oh, sometimes it doesn’t go well at all.  They’re scared, after all.  The poor little things with their impermanent vessels.  Sometimes they flee on sight and even bound to earth they can outrun the demon negotiators.  Crowley’s best crossroads fiends.  Sometimes they pause long enough for an angelic “No, thank you” before cutting out.  Sometimes they attack.  Other times still, they linger into temptation.  
  
She’s only caught a handful so far, but they are good ones.  Subversive little things that will take her far, deep into the camps of both of the opposing angel factions.  How lovely it would be to rule their little heaven on earth together, in chaos, in the absence of both God and the devil.  
  
It isn’t that she doesn’t miss him, of course.  Only that there doesn’t seem to be any way to pop the cage at present… the "first demon" was already dead, effectively shoving bubblegum into the final lock.  Even if that wasn’t the case, she isn’t in a rush to let the fun end just yet.  
  
And yet, angels aren’t supposed to fall, not that fast or that many.  She feels the shift in hell, but she doesn’t understand its ramifications.  She doesn’t really realize that this change in the power structure is unmooring the very bonds that keep Hell and Earth in balance.  
  
\---------------  
  
Gadreel knows that he should find the presence of Sam Winchester’s active consciousness concerning.  As the original owner of the gargantuan vessel, Sam should have fallen into silence as soon as the angel took him completely.  Maybe it was the months when Gadreel had slept in Sam’s subconsciousness, perhaps it had changed the nature of their bond.  Perhaps it was how Gadreel actively wrapped his grace around Sam’s soul to protect it from the strain.  Perhaps it was Gadreel’s post-imprisonment weakness or Sam’s post-trial spiritual strength.  
  
In any case, though, Gadreel had become aware that the voice in his head was not always his own; sometimes it was quieter and more subdued, others it was more forceful with a different morality than his own.  It  didn’t seem to hate him, even when it disapproved of his choices.   Even when he sometimes hated himself.  
  
Sam Winchester was a strange man, one whom Gadreel had liked from the moment that he first touched his consciousness.  As he’d settled in, he’d become more and more enamored of his quick, selfless mind and his complex heart.  Angels didn’t think that way; while their minds were multi-layered and almost endless, they were absolute.  They didn’t have the shades of gray that shadowed human morality.  They certainly didn’t have the almost contradictory range of values and judgments that seemed to temper Sam’s desperation with hope or his frustration with love.  They just were or weren't, believed or didn't.  They weren't made to question the way that humans did, and few humans even reasoned the way that Sam did.  
  
He had come to love Sam from having his angelic body pressed so close within him.  He had vicariously enjoyed his thoughts and judgments and how different they were from his own.  And because he wasn’t privy to the same psychology, he didn’t necessarily think that his intrusion was wrong.  
  
If Metatron hadn’t forced his hand, he might have just stayed curled deep in his subconscious indefinitely.  The choice plagued him, but the justifications were easy enough.  He had, however, missed Sam once he had taken control of his vessel.   The silence when he’d first taken him completely had felt surprisingly empty and not at all powerful, despite that he had one of the finest vessels ever crafted.  
  
After a time though, though, Sam had rallied.  Now they could talk.  
  
 _I know you have reservations.  What I don’t get is why you keep ignoring them._  
  
 _Sam, Metatron is the only way back into heaven.  He is the only safety for me now._  
  
 _If you found another vessel, Dean and I would protect you._  
  
 _Dean would kill me._  
  
 _Not if I told him not to._  
  
 _Sam, we’ve discussed this.  If I help Metatron, my brothers will forgive me and accept me back into the new heaven.  It is my only chance._  
  
Sam falls silent.  Gadreel feels Sam’s emotions less distinctly now than he did when Sam had controlled the vessel, but he still catches flashes of his moods.  Right now it is a deep, uncomprehending frustration and no amount of cajoling Sam to talk to him or assuring him that this is for the best  will draw a response.  
  
Gadreel sighs audibly and a woman at the coffee shop looks over at him in surprise.  He doesn’t really notice her, though, as he is staring at a menu above the barista's head.  He knows that Sam likes these organic, fancy coffees made with soy milk, so he is attempting to coax him into a good mood by indulging in one despite that his body no longer requires the sustenance.    
  
He prefers when Sam isn’t so angry with him.    
  
He also prefers to feel Sam in his mind like some strange moral compass.  It can be contradictory, but he finds his confirmations or contradictions comforting; he knows that his time imprisoned affected his ability to reason, which for an angel was like being hobbled.  
  
The woman behind him nudges him slightly, clearing her throat, and he realizes that it’s his turn to order.  It’s strange because he feels like there were 3 or 4 people ahead of him only a second ago, but the easy justification is that the time passes differently for angels.  A few minutes was hardly even a blink of an eye, really.  
  
He doesn’t realize that he has been missing moments on other occasions, or that he sent a text message during this most recent slip.

 _677983_  
  
\-----------------------------------  
  
Kevin is surprised by how easily his father accepts everything that has happened since his death.  It isn’t that it is easy to accept - several times his father seems close to tears - but his father believes him.  Of course, he himself finds that his mind works differently in heaven and he can only assume that his father has the same borderless, easy comprehension.  
  
A lot of things don’t seem as important now as they did before.  
  
As he explains the Winchesters and their role in his new life, he realizes that he isn’t angry with them.  Even Dean’s tactless, almost belligerent insistence that he work faster no longer seems quite as coldhearted as it did before.  Without his tired mortal body and the emotional weight of two years of sleep deprivation and loneliness, he can see the truth in Dean’s statements.  More than that, he could see that the Winchesters had genuinely loved him.  
  
Knowing them as he did and understanding them as he now could, he believes that Dean had truly considered him family.

The fact that someone had possessed Sam to kill him seems sad, but he isn't upset with Sam about.  More than anything, the situation seems ironic and distantly sad.  
  
The only thing that still feels important about his time on Earth is his role in taking down Metatron and reopening heaven.  To that end, he and his father begin walking.    
  
He feels the seams between memories more easily and the path seems more clear as they continue.  It seems deceptively easy.  He remembers reading about how the Winchesters were chased through heaven by angels, and how their memories were warped by entities wanting to hurt or control them.    
  
By contrast, their walk is an amicable amble with good conversation as they walk through not only their own memories, but those of people they’ve never met.  It's a strange way to see the world, completely biased from the memory owner's viewpoint, but Kevin finds himself enjoyng it.  It's strangely beautiful.  They meet several pleasant, confused souls who don’t understand why their visions of heaven are suddenly less engrossing, but there hasn’t been any danger or even extreme emotion.  Without conflict, it all begins to blend together.  Surrounded by soft, comfortable pleasantry, they begin to slow down as they lose their focus.  
  
Sitting with his father in someone’s Parisian coffeeshop memory, Kevin is comfortable.  They chat about his mother and speculate on the life that she’s currently leading; even the more unpleasant possibilities seem only slightly concerning.  They know that she will join them eventually, and then they’ll all be together for eternity and they’ll be happy.  
  
And the Winchesters will have to die eventually as well, Kevin reasons lazily as he sips a very creamy, richly scented hot chocolate.   Then they’ll be here as well.  And Cas, who’s human now and should theoretically have a human soul, he'd turn up when he managed to suck so badly at being human that he somehow got himself killed.  And if not, oh well, heaven could still be heaven without Castiel.  Dean could probably find a memory-Cas to tag along with them, and they could still be a family.   They’d help them wander through this heaven to find Bobby, and the Winchester parents, maybe even grandparents.  This really wasn’t going to be so bad; the happenings on earth really weren’t that important.  
  
In fact, maybe there’d actually been some good to the whole apocalypse thing.  Maybe it really would have been better if everyone could have just gotten back together in heaven and spent a happy, warmly glowing eternity with the souls of their loved ones.  Maybe they shouldn’t have fought dying so hard, maybe it shouldn’t have been so scary.  
  
His father nods along, adding his own thoughts on the nature of life and death.  He had been so afraid of dying when he was sick, and the end had been so painful.  He had been so unwilling to leave them behind, Kevin and Linda. But he was shocked at how being without a human body could feel so good, how the absence of pain was actually better than the sensation of pleasure.    
  
Kevin nods his agreement, commenting on how much lighter he felt now, and how purely existing as an unburdened soul felt awesome, full time.  He begins to contrast it to being tired, wasted, and lonely as a living mortal, and he compares it to the second of blinding pain when he was killed.  
  
Something about the memory of looking at Sam’s possessed countenance rouses him slightly.  He puts a handful of francs on the table to pay for their drinks (realizing distantly that he doesn’t even remember a time during his mortal life when France did not use Euros) and gets to his feet.  
  
They are moving again, still hazy.  There is a goal, and he knows that the goal is the garden.  He’s half-forgotten what is waiting there for them and he can only hope that he will know when he gets there.  He realizes belatedly that at some point, his mother’s father had joined them and then left again to spend time with a lady friend from Vietnam, but the memory seems unimportant.  Almost blurry.  
  
He stops again, feeling his focus slip, and looks over at his father.  Michael is smiling comfortably, happy just to be in his presence, and he half-considers just stopping for a few minutes to experience whatever memory they’re wandering through.  It looks like Chicago, but he doesn’t know when.  
  
A voice interrupts his consideration of the architecture, and he looks over to see a man with a stringy mullet and a comfortable t-shirt.  He knows he should recognize him, even though they’ve never met. He struggles through the lists of names that are suddenly almost hazy in his memory.  
  
“It’s Ash,” the man says, reaching over and slinging an arm about his shoulder, “And you’re Kevin.  I got it.  Been looking for you.  That your dad?  Why don’t we bring him too.”  
  
Kevin nods slowly, then reaches over and tugs on his father’s sleeve to pull him out of his reverie, “Da?  Papa?  Come on, we need to go with this guy.  Ash.  He’s… I don’t know.  Important.”  
  
Ash guides them through a glass-front shop door and into a smoky, dingy-but-clean bar.    
  
Kevin gasps as everything seems to snap into focus again.  The colors brighten, the outlines resolve into sharp clarity, and his mind clears.   He feels like he is completely himself again without any heavenly bleed-over from nearby spirits.  
  
“There ya go,” Ash says, clapping him on the shoulder, “There y’are.  Good!  Why don’t you and your dad have a beer-”  
  
“I’m underage.”  
  
“Ha ha, fuck that, man.  This is heaven!  Best beer ever and you don’t get drunk unless you want to.”  
  
Kevin takes the beer that is offered to him by a pretty blond girl who appears to be just a few years older than he is.  He stares at her, then at the other unfamiliar faces around him.  He knows them all without having ever met them.  Part of it was through being a prophet, but part of it was through being an avid reader and a thorough researcher.  
  
“Jo,” he murmurs, “and Ellen, and Pamela, and Ash… where’s Bobby?”  
  
“He’s out with Rufus, looking for John Winchester.  I expect him back shortly,” Ellen says from behind the counter.  She wipes her hands on her flannel overshirt, then walks around the bar to wrap him in a surprisingly real hug.    
  
Kevin is surprised, but he hugs her back.   It’s a solid, warm contact, and while it’s totally different, much more forceful, than his mom’s own embrace, it still reminds him in every way of a mother’s hug.  
  
When she releases him, she says, “So, we caught wind that you were up here and Bobby sent us off to retrieve you, said you were important.  He remembers you from his stint as a ghost, you know.  Said you were a good kid.”  
  
He isn’t sure how to reply to that exactly, but he nods slowly in acknowledgement.    
  
“You’re also the last one in, so you're the most recent to have seen Sam and Dean, so you’re the most likely to know what’s going on and why this place is falling apart.”  
  
“There’s… kind of been a lot of things happening lately,” Kevin says awkwardly  
  
“Well, one of those things is that there ain’t no stinkin’ angels keeping this place together,” Ash interjects from a computer that has been set up on the bar.  Kevin absently notes that it looks very 2005 and he realizes that it’s because Ash checked out pre-Windows 7.  That was strange to think about, that this technological genius has never even had the opportunity to see an iPhone, so it will be forever absent from his version of heaven.  Not that the iPhone 5 is heavenly, exactly, but it seems strange that his heavenly timeline has been arrested at that point.  
  
The skinny rocker-type points to his screen, which has a bunch of open windows that look remarkably like police scanners.    
  
“It’s fucking silent.  There’s no one here.  No talk at all.  And you’ve seen it out there.  It’s all fuzzy.  People just walkin’ around, goin' between their heaven and everyone else’s.  Before, it took some skill to do that.  Some freakin’ _finesse_.  This place isn’t made for free wanderin'; it’s messin' up the souls a bit, makin' 'em blend at the edges, I think, because they’re wanderin' into other people’s memories.  Like their soul space.”  
  
Kevin nods slowly, “Well, ah… that part is kinda Cas’s fault.”  
  
Ellen rolls her eyes a bit at that, but doesn’t say anything.  She hadn’t know the angel for very long before she and Jo had died, but it had been long enough to get what she felt was a fairly solid read on his character.  Her overall assessment was that his heart was often in the right place, even if his mind was somewhere else entirely.  
  
“Metatron tricked him into completing a spell that expelled all of the angels from heaven.  He thought that he was just locking heaven closed, the way Dean and Sam were trying to permanently lock up Hell.”  
  
Ash groans, “You can’t just… lock these places up!  There’s a certain way that everything’s made to work, y’know?  There’s a very logical progression of life and death, and heaven and hell and all.  You can’t just swap that shit around.”  
  
“I understand that now, with this perspective and with everything that’s been happening on Earth… but at the time, it really sounded like a good idea,” Kevin admits.  
  
Jo nods very seriously, handing a beer to Kevin’s father before looping back to stand beside Ash.  She is very much what Kevin had pictured from reading the supernatural books, though her face is a little less cookie-cutter perfect than his mind had supplied from her description.  Still, she is very pretty and he can appreciate how self-possessed she is as she leans against the counter.  
  
“It’s easy to get caught up in that,” she agrees, “And those two are unstoppable when they get an idea into their heads.  They really just feed off of each other.  It’s kind of ridiculous, really.”  
  
Ellen nods in agreement with her daughter, resting her hand lightly on Kevin’s upper back, “You mentioned someone named Metatron-”  
  
“Metatron?”  Bobby asks as he walks into the bar with Rufus in tow.  He pulls up his cap and resettles it on his head, “Who’s talking about Metatron?  That’s like the voice of God.”  
  
“Kevin’s here.  He said that Metatron tricked Cas into doing a spell that kicked all of the angels out of heaven,” Ellen supplies readily, smiling as Ash offers Bobby a beer.  
  
The older hunter grumbles, “That feather-brained fool.”  
  
Kevin is a little surprised to find himself rising to Castiel’s defense, despite that he isn’t incredibly fond of the angel or the things that he had said to him in the past.  All the same, he can’t help but feel that the context of the situation is important, as is the cost for his actions.  
  
“We all thought Metatron was on our side… he saved me from Crowley, even.  He seemed like he just wanted to be left alone, like we were the ones using him rather than the opposite,” he justifies, “And Castiel lost a lot for it.  Metatron took his grace.”  
  
“So Cas is human?” Bobby asks incredulously.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“How did that work out?”  
  
“Not so well, really,” Kevin answers, shaking his head, “He’s terrible at it.”  
  
Bobby snorts and takes a long swig of his beer, “So, at current, heaven is locked up tight and Cas is human.  What else do we need to know?”  
  
“Dean and Sam are trying to lock up Hell the same way,” Jo says, nodding toward Kevin for affirmation.  
  
“There’s also this demon named Abaddon who’s taken over Hell in Crowley’s abs-”  
  
“What happened to Crowley?” Bobby interrupts explosively.  
  
At that point, Kevin realizes how much has happened within the last year and a half.  He is already tired of telling this story, but he recognizes that he will likely need the help of everyone here in the bar.  He glances over at his father for strength, then says, “All right, why don’t you all just sit down, get a drink, and I’ll go over everything that’s happened since Bobby died, and we can all be on the same page.  I’m sure that there are things that I don’t know because I don’t really get this whole heaven thing, and I’m sure that some of the stuff happening on earth has been pretty important.”  
  
Everyone agrees that this is a good course of action.  Kevin is surprised by how readily he and his father are accepted into the group.  It is almost as though the Winchesters’ family in heaven is also his family in heaven, and he is actually a part of something big and extremely important.


	8. Hourglass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie's back in town. Castiel takes on his first trial alone.

By the time that Dean has finished with Crowley, there are two newcomers to the bunker.  The hunter grabs his little sister and crushes her in an overenthusiastic embrace, telling her emphatically, “You are just the girl I wanted to see.”  
  
“Dean, I’m offended,” Dorothy teases from her place in the doorframe.  She is comfortable in the Men of Letters’ bunker regardless of who now ‘owns’ it, having spent a good deal of time wandering its hallowed halls as a younger woman in a different time.  
  
“You, you’re just lucky you didn’t get her killed, else we’d be having a different conversation entirely,” Dean says surprisingly good-naturedly considering his mood.  With one arm still about Charlie, he leans over to clap the other woman on the shoulder, “Welcome back to the real world, or what’s left of it.”  
  
“That’s ominous,” Dorothy comments.  
  
“Well, we’re in a sort of end of times situation.”  
  
“Again,” Charlie amends, adding, “Where’s Sam?”  
  
“I’m actually hoping you can help me with that,” Dean says, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.  He’d  practically shouted with excitement when his phone had buzzed in his pocket and he’d seen the message from his brother’s number as they pulled into the Bunker’s hidden garage.  
  
 _Dean, that could be from anyone with Sam’s phone._  
  
 _No, no Cas.  It’s Sam.  It’s our code.  It’s Sam._  
  
Cas had made several valid points, the most compelling being that Gadreel likely had access to the content of Sam’s mind and would know all of their little codes and tricks.   However Dean had been so desperate to believe that Sam had contacted him that he was willing to put aside any doubts. _Why would Gadreel contact me?  If he'd wanted me dead, he'd have killed me when I tried to expose him.  Come on, man, have a little faith!_  
  
“You know that angel tracker app you built?” Dean asks.  
  
“Yeah…” Charlie replies uncertainly, “Why?”  
  
“We’re gonna use that to find Sam.”  
  
“It’s only for angels. Sam’s not an angel,” the redhead replies as though this obvious fact is of paramount importance.  Her eyes widen as she demands, “Or oh my god, _is he_?  Did Lucifer get out and take over Sam again?  How long have I been gone anyway?  Where the hell _is_ Sam?”  
  
Dean’s shoulders stiffen slightly, but he lets his breath out slowly, “I _really_ don’t feel like going through everything again, so I’m going to give you the need-to-know version: Sam is possessed by an angel and I need you to help me find him.”  
  
Charlie blinks slowly at him, partly in shock and partly for effect.    
  
“What.”  
  
“I really don’t have time to fully explain it,” Deans replies flippantly, “I’ll tell you the whole story once we get Sam back.”  
  
Charlie pulls back slightly from him and gives him an extremely calculating look, her well-shaped eyebrows raised in slight irritation.  She knows Dean surprisingly well for not having known him long; there’s something in their commonalities that has always made it easy for her to see through the hunter’s mask of machismo.    
  
“Oh, _don’t even_!  What were you going to do if I hadn’t shown up at like this exact moment?”  
  
“Have Cas do it.”  
  
“Cas is an angel again?” she asks, surprised, “Is he here?  Why aren’t you just doing that anyway?”  
  
“Yeah, and he’s here…” Dean lowers his voice and pulls her closer again, “But he’s got some stuff to do and not much time to do it.  He’s, ah… he’s not doin’ so hot.”  
  
Charlie reads deeply into that, particularly in light of Dean’s grim expression.  She realizes that Dean is at the edge, about to lose everything, and she is suddenly grateful that she is there.  She wants to reassure Dean that she’ll stay with him, and that she’ll support him whatever happens.  However, they don’t have that sort of relationship; they’re bros.  Instead, she just nods, pressing and biting her lower lip quickly.  
  
“Okay, right.  Well, we’ll-”  
  
“Dean, Crowley is secure.  I’m ready to take you to Sam,” Cas calls quietly as he walks in to meet his lover.  As he crosses the threshhold into the room, he looks in surprise at the two women. “Oh.”  
  
“Cas, this is Charlie and Dorothy.  Dorothy and Charlie, Cas.”  
  
“Which is which,” Cas says flatly, more as a statement than a question.    
  
“Charlie,” Charlie says, raising her hand in a small, frantic fangirl wave.  Her eyes are slightly wide as she looks over the trenchcoated angel, taking in his sharp-lined, stubbly face and his dark, mussed hair.  “You’re not quite what I expected.  But better.  _Nice_ , Dean.”  
  
“What,” Dean and Castiel ask in unison, though in very different tones.  Dean goes slightly red right down to the collar of his shirt as Charlie shoots him an approving look.  
  
“S’alright, man, I ship it.”  
  
“I… have no idea what that means,” the hunter admits, looking away.  
  
Socially gracious despite years of living in the wilds of Oz, Dorothy reaches over to shake hands with Castiel.  She doesn’t know who or what he is, and therefore has no compunction whatsoever about just reaching over and grasping the hand of a creature that could smite her on contact.  Charlie winces, but Cas shakes her hand uncertainly.  
  
“I’m Dorothy.  Pleasure to meet you, Cas.”  
  
Cas releases her hand and turns his attention back to Dean, “We should go.  We really don’t have much time.”  
  
“Yeah, about that.  You know, I think Charlie’s gonna help me out on the Sam front.  You need to get on to getting the stuff to perform that spell; like you said, we don’t have much time and there’s a lot of tough stuff to get through,” Dean says smoothly, nodding to the angel.  
  
Cas looks slightly confused again, but he nods, “If you think that would be best.”  
  
“Yeah… I do.  I’ll call you when I’ve got the Sam situation under control, then we can figure out everything else from there.”  
  
The angel accepts the plan, then takes an uncertain step toward him as though he might kiss him before he leaves.  However, he remembers himself and the strict rules that Dean has in place with regard to any sort of non-platonic anything in front of other people, and sort of sways lightly before stepping back.  He smiles thinly, grimly, then says, “I’ll tell you when I’ve got the siren’s tongue.”  
  
The other two items are considerably more difficult, potentially impossible, and they both know it.    
  
Dean nods, licking his lips, and says, “Yeah, see you soon.”  
  
With that, Castiel vanishes with his characteristic feather rustle, leaving Dean again with the two women.  Charlie is looking at him disapprovingly; she shakes her head and said, “Cold, Dean.  Cold.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Come on, man, I’ve read the books.  I know the… subtext.”  
  
This was not a conversation that he was getting into right now, not with Charlie, not in front of Dorothy, not with the world trying its damndest to end itself, hell, not ever.  He groans, rolling his eyes, “Those books are trash, come on.”  
  
“Historically accurate trash,” Charlie argues.  
  
Dean resolves for probably the millionth time to kill Chuck Shirley if he ever lays eyes on him again.  A part of him wonders exactly what subtext she was referring to, and exactly how… _subtextual_ that subtext was; he’d read the first series of books leading to his incarceration in Hell, and well, they hadn’t left much to the imagination in terms of what Dean got up to with women.  _I’m full-frontal in here, dude._ He felt an uncomfortable roll in his middle at the thought of his “fictional” self banging Cas in the back seat of the impala for everyone to read; bad enough that the fan fiction authors had him doing that already, in addition to shagging everyone from Sam to Crowley to the youthened version of his father; they didn't need to encourage the weirdos by making him and Cas "canon."   
  
He clears his throat, “Anyway, let’s get this thing started and find Sam.”  
  
Charlie wants to press, but she knows Dean’s limits; she doesn’t want him to shut down entirely, particularly when he doesn’t have anyone else to turn to right now.  Glancing over at Dorothy, she realizes belatedly that perhaps it would have been different if it had just been the two of them.  Though maybe not; Dean was practically in freaking _Narnia_ regardless of whose company he was in.  
  
“Yeah… yeah, right.  Okay.  Let’s go.  I think we should be able to find some specific angels.  You know the name of the guy in him?  Wow, that sounded dirty, sorry.”  
  
Dean, still a bit hot under the collar from Charlie’s implications about Cas, just pushes on, feeling almost indignant on Sam’s behalf even though normally he would have laughed out loud at that particular slip.  He smirks awkwardly, then follows Charlie as she leads the way down to the control room.  
  
“It’s a guy named Gadreel.  Cas said that he’s one of the older angels.  He was the one who was supposed to be keeping an eye on the garden of Eden, and I guess he’s the guy who let the snake in or something.  He’s kinda a bad guy as far as angels go, and he’d been locked up for a really freaking long time before all the angels fell.”  
  
“Wow. That’s some pretty serious business, Dean.  How did he even get into Sam?  Didn’t Sam have to say yes?”  
  
At that, Dean squirms a bit, “Yeah… and he did.  I kind of helped.  We didn’t know-”  
  
“You did what?”  
  
“We didn’t know that it was a bad angel; he said he was someone who Cas knew.  An angel named Ezekiel, and Cas vouched that Ezekiel was a good guy.  Sam was gonna die.  Like, he was in a coma and he wasn’t going to wake up, _ever_.  It’s not like I could talk to him about it.”  
  
“Still, Dean!  Consent!  Seriously!  I mean, come on, you helped the guy to basically angelic date-rape your brother,” Charlie says disbelievingly.  
  
Charlie’s judgment hits him hard, reminding him again that he is unforgiven.  
  
“You think I haven’t realized that?” he replies defensively, flicking on the lights of the control room with an angry swipe of his fingers, “You think I don’t feel like shit over it?  But what the fuck was I supposed to do, let him die?  Charlie, he was going to _die_.”  
  
The younger woman sighs, realizing that she’s beating a dead horse but finding herself unable to stop, “And… this was your big secret when I was here last time, huh?  And I actually did die, and it was angel Sam who brought me around.  So there’s just been this shit ton of secrets piling up on you, and you, like a fucking dumbass, have been keeping them all to yourself.”  
  
He doesn't really have a good retort to what she’d said, so he just sets his jaw childishly and keeps silent.    
  
Without anything to bounce another comment off of, Charlie too goes quiet.  Dorothy, who has been quiet the entire time, excuses herself completely by slipping out into one of the adjoining hallways.  
  
Charlie worries her lower lip between her teeth as she fires up the obviously unused equipment, wondering belatedly if she was really in a place to judge him.  He had obviously made a mistake and had obviously realized it, so there was no point in browbeating him.  The two brothers really were dangerously attached to each other, destructively dependent on each other.  Yet even realizing that, Charlie sometimes found herself wishing that she had someone - family or otherwise - in her life with whom she could share such a bond.  
  
As she starts up the related app on her tablet, she just says, “All I’m saying is that you could have told me.”  
  
Dean sighs and leans in the doorframe, watching her, “Yeah, I know.”  
  
She nods at the acknowledgement, satisfied with its sincerity.  She isn’t the type to linger on the past, so she is more than willing to push on with the current situation.  She nods to herself, changing the subject, “So, you know how to spell that name?”  
  
“Um, I think it’s just G-A-D-R-E-E-L.”  
  
“Okay… well, I’m going to create a profile for him and see if I can pick him out on the map.  He’s been inside the bunker, so that makes it a little easier to pick him out of the rest of the blips on the map.  Probably some kind of signature still lingering about here.  I mean, I can still see Cas’ glow here… just... crap though, Dean, there are angels all over.”  
  
Dean looks at the little lights on the map of the world, guessing that there are probably a few thousand.  He notices also that some of the countries labeled on the map created by the Men of Letters aren’t in existence anymore and hadn’t been for some time.  It gives him the same little thrill of pleasure as seeing an old globe that still showed the U.S.S.R.    
  
He also notices that there are more angels in the US than anywhere else, likely because that stupid preacher’s American audience was letting them into a disportionate number of vessels domestically.  Yeah, it looks like there is a concentration in the Bible Belt and in some of the more religiously fervent regions of the US, though the the lights did seem to flit about a bit inconsistently.  
  
“Can you also set up a profile for Cas?  Which one is he?”  
  
Charlie zips her fingertip across the screen of her tablet, then tilts it toward him, “He’s that sort of dimmer one there.  He doesn’t have a real strong signal, but he’s there, in… wow, he moves fast.  He’s out in Salt Lake City.   With about a dozen other angels.”  
  
Dean’s eyes pick out the only other labeled dot on the map, “And Sam’s in Missouri.  Okay.  Well, I suppose I should get driving… you and Dorothy can man the fort and give me updates if he moves, okay?  I mean… it is a possibility that I won’t catch up with him there, so…”  
  
“Yeah.  But we’ll get him.  We can also see if we can find any trail of where he’s been that might help us figure out where he’s heading next.”  
  
“Right, okay.  Well, I’ll check in with you in a few hours.  You still got a phone?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Well, you call me if anything changes or if you need anything at all.  I’ve got about a day’s drive, less if I haul tail.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“And stay out of the dungeon where we’re keeping Crowley.  He’s not completely restrained and I don’t want him touching either of you or causing any problems.”  
  
“Right Dean, I got it.”  
  
“There’s food in the kitchen… Sam’n I just went shopping the other day before things went tits up-”  
  
“Really.  We’ll be fine.  Get on the road.”  
  
Dean swallows quickly, realizing that there are about a million reasons why he doesn’t want to leave the bunker right now.  Seeing his hesitation, Charlie pauses in her perusal of the map to turn to hug him.  
  
“Seriously, bro.  You can do this.”  
  
He holds tightly to her for a moment and kisses her cheek, before pulling away and smoothing his hair casually, “Right.  I’m out.”

  
  
\------------

  
The cross-country flight leaves Cas exhausted with his damaged wings throbbing painfully and his entire angelic body feeling strangely windburned.  Outwardly, his vessel looks much as it always does - rumpled and slightly limp - but inside he wrecked.  
  
It’s strange sometimes when he compares this physical body to the figure he presented in heaven - though he was smaller than many of his fellow soldiers, he was fit and strong with not a feather out of place.  To translate it to human terms, it was like having a well-maintained brush cut, a constantly pressed uniform, and perfectly shined boots.  He was just _that_ angel, the small, keen fighter who put his heart into everything that he did.  
  
He really doesn’t know why he doesn’t - and never did - keep his human vessel with the same care.  He sometimes thinks that he initially neglected his vessel because he had no intention of spending much time with a corporeal form; it was supposed to be only a brief stint before the apocalypse.  It wasn’t until he’d rebelled and lost the vessel’s original soul that he began to consider the body his own; by that time, though, he had grown accustomed to a certain look, a certain way of carrying himself.  It was almost in direct opposition to who he was as a soldier of the Lord and it became almost a conscious decision to look like the angel he felt he was becoming.  Further, he knew that Dean liked how he looked, and he liked the feeling of a day’s worth of stubble as it dragged against his hunter’s jaw.    
  
Now, he leans against the wall of a seedy local motel and struggles to stay on his feet.  He knows that he should press forward, but he just needs to rest for a few minutes before he takes on this task.  He shifts slightly, effortlessly sliding through the wall to the inside of the room, then allows himself to crumple inward to press himself into the corner.  
  
Perhaps it will be more than a few minutes.

As a precaution, he uses his waning grace to crush the inner mechanisms of the door lock, effectively preventing anyone from entering the motel room without considerable effort.  Even that exertion feels taxing; he knows that he lacks the strength to climb to his feet, and so he just curls himself tighter into the corner and tries to make himself as small as possible before he loses consciousness.  
  
It’s a day and a half later by the time he wakes up.  Still groggy, he climbs to his feet to and shakes off the sleep-addled sluggishness that clings to his aching, overheated body.  As he moves, he can feel the toll that the foreign grace continues to take on him.  He’s thankful that the mirror in the cheap motel room is smudgy and the silvered back is clouded with age; he doesn’t want to see himself, knowing that he would see his angelic reflection just as easily as he can see that of his vessel.  He doesn't want to see, not really.  
  
He easily corrects the door lock and slips out into the parking lot.  Under normal circumstances, finding any manner of supernatural creature would be nothing for him.  However, as he extends the tendrils of his grace, he knows that they lack the sensitivity of even a few days ago; he feels dull and half-blind as he wanders closer to town, knowing that the siren he’d been tracking would place itself closer to city center and the most densely populated areas.  
  
It hurts to move, but he doesn’t allow himself to communicate the sensation to his vessel’s expression or style of movement.  His steps are smooth and sure and his chin is up.  His fatigue crossed with his preternatural focus yields a surprising natural, unsually human expression.  
  
As he walks, he promises himself that when he has collected the siren’s tongue, he will allow himself to simply soak in the Great Salt Lake and let the purifying salt leech out some of the infection.  It’s a fantastic motivator, one that puts a bit of spring in his step.  
  
He absently pulls out his phone and notes that Dean has texted him about a dozen times since the previous day.  They’re all fairly mild, but there is a subtle, mounting tension underlying the increasingly frequent timestamps.  
  
 _Heading to just outside of stl to get Sam_  
 _That’s st Louis_  
 _Where are you_  
 _Are you alive_  
 _Just stopped for lunch_  
 _Text me when you get this_  
 _Fuck Charlie just texted me to say that Sam moved so I’m turning toward Illinois_  
 _Where the hell are you_  
 _I hate driving in Illinois there are so freaking many cops_  
 _Seriously man where are you_  
 _Did you get that tongue yet_  
 _I’m bored_  
 _What are you doing_  
 _Are you alive_  
 _Cas come on text me man_  
  
He can easily text while walking, so he taps out a quick reply ( _The travel left me weakened, so I was forced to rest when I arrived.  I am attending to the siren right now and will rejoin you shortly_ ).  He wonders briefly if his response is overly formal, but sends it anyway.  Style is really unimportant in communication, he reflects.  He’s aware that Dean’s texting is extremely lazy and and rather uneven due to autocorrection; he can’t remember the last time that he saw punctuation on a text from the elder Winchester.  By contrast, Sam’s were practically full-fledged prose.  
  
He slips his phone back into his pocket, then pauses as he feels the vibration of something decidedly off in the immediate vicinity.  Pausing in the middle of the sidewalk, he tips his head back and focuses his senses.  They are hazy, but still sharper than anything that he can perceive through his human vessel.  
  
He can almost feel the aquatic notes of decay that emanate from the inhuman creature.  It’s a sickly, disgusting sensation that he feels on the tip of his tongue and in the back of his nostrils.  There are carnal tones of semen and blood, unwashed hair and sweat.  Something wet and rotting, perfumed with something beautiful and unreal.  Without opening his vessel’s eyes, he puts one foot in front of the other and follows a sense of love-stricken anxiety that creates an almost tangible trail for him.  He’s aware that the people he passes must wonder at his unerring balance and the command of his surroundings, but he tunes out everything except what was related to his task.  
  
He feels his phone buzz in his coat pocket and knows that it’s Dean; the thought momentarily draws his attention, but he knows that he can’t allow himself to be distracted.  Instead, he adds the hunter’s text to the list of rewards waiting for him once he has acquired the first ingredient of this spell.  
  
He hears a woman’s voice laughing softly and making sweet promises of fidelity, almost feels the vibrations of her fingertips as they drag upward against someone’s forearm.  The voice that replies is male, lowered in arousal, making similar promises.  The infected victim has been tainted by the scent of its predator’s poison, making it difficult to differentiate which was which.  However, he can feel the direction and he can smell the poison.  It's enough to keep him moving forward.  
  
Wihtout realizing it, Castiel is walking through walls and people, moving in almost a straight line now as he comes closer to his target.  He distantly hears passersby exclamations of surprise or fear, but he blithely ignores them.  He is close and he won’t be distracted; this is hardly the time for subtlety.  
  
“Who are you?” a voice asks sharply as an iron-firm hand closes over his shoulder.

It has a hidden, high singing tone that a human voice cannot carry.  Meaning underlies the English words, an Enochian demand that he identify himself and explain what is wrong with him.  In surprise, Castiel opens his eyes to meet those of a tall, sturdy blond man who has taken a firm grip on him and does not seem to have any intention of letting him go.  
  
“What is wrong with you?” the other angel demands, almost panicked.  Castiel knows what the other angel sees; a diseased, grace-tainted angel whose very being is beginning to come apart at the seams.  
  
“I’m sick,” he replies simply, “And I would suggest that you remove your hand from my vessel, lest you become sick as well.”  
  
It's a simple lie, and one that comes to him with surprising ease.  He doesn't remember when he'd really learned to lie, only that he had done it several times very convincingly lately.  There is a particular pleasure to it, one that he will have to guard against giving in to except in desperate situations.  He is honest, and despite his failing grace, good; he does not want to enjoy lying.

The other angel pulls back in horror, looking at his hand as though it was suddenly tainted by rot as well.  Without another word, he vanishes, leaving Castiel alone on the street again.    
  
Castiel smirks to himself, wondering how easily he can play on the ignorance of other angels.  Very few knew or would understand what Castiel had done or how it was quickly consuming him; most would only see a sick, mutated creature and would not understand that the disease could not be communicated to them.  It is an easy way to keep the uninitated at a distance without expending any energy at all to do so.  
  
He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, then continues his steady trek toward his goal.  He can hear the siren and its prey more clearly now, and he knows that he is almost within striking range.  
  
He opens his eyes when he realizes that he can perceive them through his vessel's human senses in addition to his angelic ones.  Before him, a man and a woman are staring in disbelief at him, their faces a combination of fascination and horror.  Castiel tilts his head to the side curiously, then glances in the direction from which he had come.  He realizes abruptly that their confusion stems from the fact that he has walked through their bedroom wall, several stories above the city.  
  
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he tells one of them, though he isn’t sure which.  This close, his angelic vision is muddied and he is uncertain as to which is the siren.  The stench of salt and sex is so strong that it is impossible to tell from whom it is emanating.  
  
The woman, who is quite a bit smaller than her lover, steps forward protectively, “What are you doing?”  
  
The self-sacrificing behavior is that of a woman in love; Castiel knows immediately that she is the victim, and he raises his eyes to the man standing just behind her.  He licks his dry lips, and then tells her, “I’m actually here to save you.”  
  
A wave of his hand sends the woman flying with a bit more force than he angel had intended.  She hits the wall with hardenough to knock the wind out of her, but otherwise leave her conscious and gasping.  
  
Castiel doesn’t waste words either.  The Siren, now revealed, makes an attempt to save itself by spraying the angel with its toxin.  However, without human hormones, the clear liquid has no effect.  The movement does, however, expose the creature’s tongue, which Castiel cuts out with a clean, precise swipe of his blade.  
  
“Thank you,” he says briefly, smiling as the creature rears back and howls in rage and pain.  
  
On another day, Castiel may have stayed to finish the creature.  However, knowing that it has been effectively rendered harmless, he takes flight again, leaving the disgusting scene behind him.  He knows that he has caused the woman a massive amount of trauma, but he knows that he has saved her life.  That is enough, he decides, as he slips the creature's tongue into his pocket.  
  
The flight this time is short and takes him only to the chilly center of the Great Salt Lake.  He drops down into the cold water, breaking through the thin crust of ice, and letting his vessel sink deep below the surface.  He lets himself fall slowly until his feet touch the bottom, where he lingers without breathing for several minutes.  He lets the sway of the water rock his slim body, feeling the earth turning and carrying his body with it as it hurtles around the sun.  The simultaneous stillness and movement soothe him, reminding him of the beautiful design of the universe and his place within it.  He lingers for a moment longer, opening his eyes in the murky deep, then he pushes off of the rocky bottom and propels himself again to the surface.  
  
Without hesitation, he peels himself out of his vessel and stretches his massive body, unseen, in the purifying salt waters.  He keeps his vessel balanced on the palm of one of his many hands as his wings stretch out to their full, impressive span.  They wick up the water, becoming thick and heavy with the life-giving liquid.  The slivers of broken ice cool his burning body, extinguishing the heat that has ravaged his body for days.  He floats on the surface of the water, letting the salt sting and cleanse the wounds that cover his graceful, elongated limbs and torso.  
  
The salt water draws out the infection, easing his pain and cooling the blazing star at his heart.  His eyes are closed in weary pleasure as he revels in the diminished sensation, each of his faces relaxed in grateful prayer.  _Thank you Father for this respite._  
  
He doesn’t know why he still believes that his father listens when he prays, but the lack of response hasn’t stopped him from calling out to the darkness.  Sometimes he is motivated by need or grief, but others, like now, it is simple pleasure or gratitude.  It is intuitive and clumsy, and it is one of the last truly hopeful things that he does.  
  
 _Lord give me strength to complete my trials before I die._  
  
It’s the better part of another day before he manages to coil his angelic form back into his still, gently warmed vessel.  The cool, salt-blessed waters have only given him a temporary reprieve, but he feels stronger.  Even if his grace will consume him entirely, this has given him the strength to take flight again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just like true form Cas, okay? :)


	9. Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heavenly action task force makes a decision. Dean makes another deal.

Crowded around one of the dented tables in the bar, the hunters new and old discuss their options.  Michael Tran has been tidily folded into the group as though he had always been a part of the hunting community, despite that his only connection happens to have been fathering a Prophet of the Lord about 20 years ago.  
  
There are a number of problems, most having to do with the instability of heaven itself.  The maps that Ash has drawn up over the last few years are no longer accurate due to the shifts in terrain, which tend to make navigation difficult.  Rufus and Bobby had been attempting to remap some of the nearby matrices, but they were changing and blending so frequently that it was becoming increasingly difficult to even find their way back to their home base.    
  
The only reason that the Road House seems to have remained stable is because it was a fixed point in the memories of so many people; whether or not it would continue to be a safe haven remains to be seen.  
  
After thorough discussion of Metatron, they decide that the most logical place to look for him is in the garden.  The garden was where Joshua had most recently spoken to God, according the Winchesters' experiences; it was the place in heaven closest to God.  And as Metatron seemed to fancy himself the new ruler of the cosmos, it was more than likely that he had claimed the garden for himself.  
  
The real question was in just _getting_ there.  They were finding that the longer a soul had been in heaven, the less time he or she had before they started to haze out on the trail.  Ash couldn’t spend a lot of time outside before he started to lose his mental focus, and Jo and Ellen were only slightly better.  
  
It was finally decided that since Kevin was the freshest and the most personally connected to Metatron, he would likely stand the best chance of keeping his head.  Bobby, the second most recent addition to the heavenly drinking party, would accompany him.  Michael was the longest deceased, but he made it clear that he would not be staying behind while his son faced the only angel in heaven.  No argument Kevin made held any weight against his father’s firm insistence, in part because it seemed that the worst that would happen would be that his father might simply wander off.  
  
“One ‘a the things that will help you keep your bearings,” Bobby said as they stepped out of the bar and into an open field that he half-recognizes, “Is to keep talking.  You keep saying who you are and where you’re going.  If you can, you keep saying why.”  
  
Kevin nods, wishing that he had some physical object to hold on to as they walk through the knee-high grass.  But that was one of those death things, "you can't take it all with you" or something like that.  It’s pleasant outside, dewy and warm with the sun just rising gold over the edge of the horizon.  He wonders what this memory was and to whom it belonged, but quickly reminds himself that all that matters is that he isn’t the person who loved this place.  
  
“I don’t know what to talk about,” he admits, “I feel like the last two years of my life have been someone else’s life.  You know, before I became a prophet, everything was really just… normal.  It could have been anyone else’s life.  I went to school, I studied for my tests, I prepped for the college entrance exams, I visited campuses with my mom.  It was just completely ordinary.”  
  
“So don’t tell me about that then, kid,” Bobby says, opening a barn door that leads into a bustling Toyko train station.  All around them, commuters rush past in a complicated choreography without talking to each other, but Bobby just ignores them. “Tell me about the stuff that’s different.  Vivid.”  
  
“It seems weird to talk about Hell in Heaven.”  
  
Bob’s eyebrows flick up slightly beneath the brim of his baseball cap.  He glances over at Kevin, wondering if he was being flippant or if he just didn’t know.  He smirks, deciding on the latter, and says, “I been to Hell.  You ain’t been there.”  
  
Kevin blinks at him, remembering Sam telling him about the second trial.  This was Bobby, right.  The soul they'd saved.  His father seems similarly uncomfortable, though he recovers more gracefully, “We are surrounded by memories of good times, so talking about our happy moments will be white noise.  I’m afraid that talking about unpleasant times will provide more of an anchor.”  
  
Bobby nods grimly, “Never fear, I’ve got plenty of those.  And a lot of them make entertaining stories, oddly enough.”  
  
He laughs a little as they cross the train platform, past a living, glowing soul who is kissing a memory in greeting.  They all avoid looking too closely at anything or allowing themselves to soak in any of the memories or emotions around them; they’re all aware that doing so, or noting similarities between their memories and those around them, is the first step to losing themselves and their forward progress.  
  
“Yeah?  Tell me one.  You tell me a story, I’ll tell you a story.”  
  
Bobby gives him a sidelong glance, then laughs a bit, “How much do you know about the apocalypse?”  
  
“Apocalypse?” Michael asks, raising his eyebrows.  
  
“Yeah, don’t worry about it, Dad, it didn’t actually happen.”  
  
“So you know about it?” Bobby asks.  
  
The doors to the subway slide open, and they walk through into a one-room schoolhouse.  It’s mostly empty, but not in a lonely way.  The winter sun is shining through the many windows, illuminating little desks and catching on ink pots and shiny pen nibs.  
  
“Yeah, I know a bit,” Kevin says, “Though I came late to the party… I didn’t come in until the Leviathan thing.”  
  
Bobby’s teeth clench slightly at the mention of ‘the Leviathan thing.’  Even after being in heaven for several months, he hasn’t forgotten his time as a vengeful spirit or his trip to Hell.  The entire reason why he’s on this side of the veil rather than helping on the ground is because of goddamned Dick Roman.    
  
He opens the door to the snowy outside, then shakes his head and walks to investigate another door on an opposing wall.  That door opens into a closet full of little woolen jackets and satchels, so he sighs and loops back to the front door to lead them them down the front steps into the snow.  Around them, children are happily building snow men and pelting each other with loosely-packed little snowballs while a pretty blond teacher watches over them.  None of the souls seem distinct from the memories, but they don’t look too carefully for fear of being pulled in.  
  
“The Leviathan were a bit of a problem, yeah.  You could say that,” Bobby says.  He doesn’t particularly want to talk about it, but he feels very much like himself when he remembers them.  He is very much not the children around him when he remembers the horror of the Leviathan’s toothy faces; he is very much not lost in the winter glow blanketing the hills around them.    
  
He yanks open the door to a shed, which he is pleased to find leads into someone’s high school dance.  Judging by the pale tuxedos, the girls' hairstyles, and Barry White crooning seductively over the stereo, it's somewhere in the mid-seventies.   
  
“You met Dick Roman, didn’t you?  That’s the bastard who killed me.  Shot me right in the friggin’ head.  That was an interesting experience, certainly not how I thought I was going to go.  I always figured that if I was gonna get taken down by one ‘a them chompers, I’d be lunch…”  
  
Kevin lets him talk, focusing hard on his words and his own related memories.  When he feels his father seeming to slip into the seventies high school landscape around them, he adds his experiences to Bobby’s and makes them relevant, and unfortunately painful, for his father by bringing in his and his mother’s involvement.  
  
They’re all moving forward and they’re very much themselves.  They don’t know how long it will take to the garden, but they can all distantly feel the pull.  Kevin feels the call of something there, something that he knows only he among his group can feel.  Prophets can decipher the language of God, and something in the garden wants to talk to him.  
  
  
\-------------------

  
  
By the time that Dean catches up to Sam’s little blip on the map, it’s three days later and he has put almost 1,800 miles on the odometer.   He’s tired and irritable, largely because the radio reception has been bad for the last 500 miles and he’s only heard from his angel once during that time.  He's also only changed his clothes onces, which makes him feel grungy and somehow stiffer, even if lack of activity hasn't exactly contributed to dirt or sweat.  All of this weaving about and crisscrossing roads that he’s already traveled wears him out and emphasizes the enormous disadvantages that he faces.   
  
However, as he stretches his long legs and approaches the boardwalk at Atlantic City, he feels a strange calm settle over his shoulders.  He doesn’t know that everything will be all right, but he feels as though he must have finally hit bottom.  More than that, he feels as though his own journey is coming to an end and it is a surprisingly pleasant sensation.  
  
He isn’t sure why, exactly.  But there is a feeling in him that reminds him of the end of the school year, as though he’s waiting to be released into summer.  Not that his summers had been easier than any other time; "no school" really just meant that he had more time to hunt with his father and fewer excuses to dodge researching horrifying creatures.  However, in summer, he wasn’t being shifted from school to school, he wasn’t missing class and then trying to catch up and fit in with a new crowd in a new town.  It was easier to pretend that he was like any other kid on a car trip with his family.  It was easier to pretend that he was normal because there were fewer things to remind him that he wasn’t, fewer constants to realize were not actually very constant at all.  Summer and fall were always seasons of change and optimism for the Winchester boys.  
  
So he feels a vague excitement and apprehension now, as though something good is waiting to begin just as soon as something bad ends.  He can’t even count how many times he’s said goodbye to his life; it’s never felt more real than today, he’s never had so little to lose, and he’s surprised by how much easier that makes everything.  
  
He looks at the pin stuck in the little virtual map that Charlie had sent him about ten minutes ago.  Nothing has moved or changed, and he feels sick to his stomach thinking that it might.  However, as he approaches the boardwalk, he sees a very familiar figure sitting on one of the benches, just looking out over the water.  
  
It’s early in the day and there aren’t many people milling about yet; gambling cities tended to be more active at night, Dean had found.  Still, there were a few random early risers and self-important hipster joggers providing just enough movement  that Dean’s own approach isn’t horribly obvious.  
  
He’s only got half a plan and this is it.  
  
When he comes within a few feet of the angel, he closes his eyes and murmurs, “ _Angelus manere in loco, et commota sunt_.”  
  
The angel before him jerks slightly as the spell anchors him to the earth.  He turns his head to see Dean standing behind him, then sighs weightily, “Dean.”  
  
“Hey there, Gadreel.  Nice to finally be able to call you by the correct name,” the elder Winchester says, moving to sit beside him on the bench.  Temporarily wing-bound or not, there is nothing stopping the angel from just reaching out, resting his hand on Dean’s forehead, and calmly burning his eyes out.  
  
“I’m sorry to have lied to you,” Gadreel says unexpectedly, “But it was necessary.”  
  
“Oh, yeah.  I’m sure.  Cas would have never vouched for you if he’d known who you were, and that would have made it pretty hard to trick me into tricking Sam,” Dean says smoothly, almost amicably.  
  
Gadreel raises his eyebrows, and the resulting expression is nothing like when Sam would have made the same gesture.  As Dean looks at him, he realizes that part of the reason he’d been so ready to believe that Gadreel would actually help them was because there was something in his mannerisms that reminded him of Castiel; there was a forthright, forceful honesty to his delivery and an intensity in his eyes that conjured up awkward, earnest Cas at his best and most angelic.  
  
“We both know that the spell you have put on me is temporary, and that I will be free to leave within a few minutes.  That is assuming that I do not kill you first.”  
  
Dean inclines his chin slightly, proud as always even though the words send a diffuse shiver of adrenaline through him.  
  
“I don’t think you will.  If you wanted to, you would have done it already.”  
  
“What is it that you want?”  
  
Dean licks his lips, looking down at the beach before them for a moment.  He remembers being on this same boardwalk with Sam on several other occasions, from when they’d been kids thundering down the wooden slats in poorly-fitted flipflops to giddy adults who had just made a small fortune hustling craps.    
  
“I need to talk to my brother.”  
  
“I’m sorry, that isn’t possible.”  
  
“We both know that it is.”  
  
They’re both silent for a moment.  Dean speaks again, not wanting to give the angel an opening for an excuse, “Look, I trusted you.  I still don’t think I was completely wrong to do so, I still want to think you're not the dick you seem to be.  But it doesn’t change the fact that you… took my little brother from me, and I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him.  I didn’t even get to tell him I was sorry for fucking everything up completely.”  
  
Gadreel looks at him in slight surprise, a strange, Sam-like vulnerability in his eyes.  Dean finds is very difficult to look at him when he seems to be in this strange middle-state.  
  
“Sam knows that you wanted the best for him, Dean.”  
  
“You can say that all you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that I need to say it to him.  I need to talk to my brother one more time.”  
  
“Dean… where do you think your brother is right now?”  
  
“Right where I left him, in that body with you,” Dean replies, forcing himself to meet the hazel eyes of the angel who is not his brother.  
  
Gadreel seems to have a hard time looking back.  He is silent again, then finally says, “He wants to talk to you, but I can’t allow him.  I can’t give him that much control again.  Already, he has strayed several times within our conversations.”  
  
“Conversations?  You… talk to him?  How?”  
  
“Our arrangement isn’t entirely orthodox, I allow him a certain degree of… autonomy.  I prefer to hear him in my thoughts because it is otherwise a rather lonely existence without the company of my brothers and sisters.”  
  
“So wait, you… enjoy talking to him.  All right.”  
  
Dean reels from that piece of information.  The angel has some sort of relationship with his brother, some sort of strange… _something_ that he perceives as companionship.  Dean knows what relationships are - they’re opportunities to exploit, tools to use, and ways to hurt people.  It’s the last piece in the puzzle, the last thing that he needed to make all of this work.  It’s the other half of his plan, practically giftwrapped.  
  
“So…” he begins carefully, “Wouldn’t you prefer to be able to talk to him face to face?”  
  
Gadreel looks at him uncertainly, “That is unfortunately not possible; while I’m certain that he would be happier with complete command of this body, there is no other vessel that could contain me long term.  My bloodline was banished from ever even existing after my fall in the garden.”  
  
It is the perfect setup, perfect, and Dean is unafraid to use it.  This is what he needs.  
  
“Sam and I are vessels of equal strength, y'know.  I was made to hold Michael,” he says smoothly, looking up at the angel.  He wills himself to see his brother within the angel, then decides that it is easier not to; he knows that if Sam is listening right now, he is screaming for Dean to just shut the fuck up and get away from him.  
  
Gadreel, however, is interested, “And?”  
  
“And if you will let me talk to Sam one last time, I will willingly let you ride around in this fine piece of ass from now to eternity,” Dean finishes triumphantly, quirking up one corner of his mouth in a rakish smirk.    
  
 _This_ is Dean Winchester, this is Dean in his element.  This is Dean sacrificing himself for his mistakes, for his little brother.  This is something he can do and he feels so damn good knowing that he won’t fail.  He can’t fail.  If there’s anything Dean’s ever been good at, it’s ripping himself down to nothing and throwing it all away.  
  
Gadreel considers this, then says, “Why would you do this for me?”  
  
“Because it’s not for you.  It’s for my little brother.  And you know, it’s for me too;  if he can forgive me for the shit I did, I can die happy.  Finally.”  
  
The concept of forgiveness is one that weighs heavily on the angel, and that compels him more than any mention of family or brotherhood.  More than anything, Gadreel wants to be forgiven.  And while Sam is the only one who can absolve Dean of his sins, Gadreel knows that only his father can forgive him.  Perhaps, in the grand plan that he fully believes his father devised, this is also fate; and perhaps by giving Dean this opportunity, he will also be giving himself a new opportunity to be made pure.  
  
“I will agree to your terms - if you will give me your word that I will have your irrevocable permission to inhabit your vessel, I will allow you to speak to Sam.”  
  
“Yes,” Dean replies readily, “As long as you want it, you have my word.  _Mi casa es su casa_ and all that crap.  You let me talk to Sam, then you let him go, and I’m yours.”  
  
Gadreel nods, “It will be done.”  
  
There is a profound change in his face as Sam resumes control of his body, but no flash of light or divine fireworks.  Instead, it is just Sam looking at him like he's insane, judging him as only Sam knows how.

“Dean!  What the fuck are you doing?”  
  
“I’m cleaning up after myself and fixing what I did to you,” he answers firmly, feeling his throat tightening as he says it.    
  
For a moment, Sam wants to punch him, but instead he wraps his arms around him and pulls him close, “Dean, what the fuck…"

"We really don't have a lot of time, okay.  So just let me talk and let me get through this-"

"Why do you always think you have to take care of me?” Sam asks, exasperated, "Not everything is your fault, Dean!"  
  
“This is. I started this mess, Sammy.  All of it.  I took you away from your chance at normal and dragged you around the country, I tricked you into letting a fucking angel into your head.  I needed you to be alive, and I needed you to be with me, and I just didn’t give a shit about what you wanted… I never really did.  I acted like I was always takin’ care of you and doing what was best for you, but it was just being selfish and-”  
  
“Dean, Dean.  Stop.  Seriously.  It’s fine.”  
  
“No, it really isn’t,” Dean says, shaking his head and holding Sam so tightly that it’s almost painful, “I’ve fucked everything up so bad.  This is all my fault and… and I’m sorry.  I’m so fucking sorry, Sammy.”  
  
Sam puts his hand against the back of his brother’s neck and cradles his head against his broad shoulder.  Dean allow the contact, holding surprisingly still.  It’s a strange feeling for Sam, comforting his brother without the older man pulling away.  There’s an uncomfortable unreality to it, especially coupled with what Dean is saying and knowing that he won't be his brother for much longer.  
  
“What do you want me to say, Dean?  That I forgive you?  Because I do.  It’s going to sound weird, but… I get it.  I get what you did and why you did it.  For once I’m not mad.“

"What?"

"Like... at the end of the trials, I was really just ready to die.  But since then, being alive... I realized that I _like_ being alive.  So yeah, I'm not so into being a hunter, but I _like_ being a scholar.  It's not settling down and being a lawyer, but it's meaningful... and I'd have never gotten that chance if I'd just died in the trials.  Especially after, fuck, not even finishing them."  
  
Dean is silent, still just holding tightly to his brother.  This isn’t what he’d expected, and he half expects for Gadreel to pop out and say ‘Gotcha!’  When he doesn't, he weight that lifts in that one moment is enough to make him gasp for air as though his chest has been too constricted to inhale for months.  Which, on reflection, it may have been.  He takes several deep, calming breaths as he tries to get his emotions in check.  
  
He feels slightly deflated though, as though all of the things he’d promised to say  to his brother are no longer necessary.  All the same, he pulls back to look his brother in the face as he forces himself to continue, “Y’know, you told me… you told me that your biggest regret was about disappointing me.  You didn’t.  You were always just so much better than I could be, and I couldn’t deal so I was a dick.  Don’t bother telling me I wasn’t, because I said a lot of really douchey things to you that I didn’t mean, or that I did mean but I shouldn’t have said.  I mean, yeah, you made mistakes, but everyone does.  I did. Our mistakes just seem to be a bit more epic than anyone else’s.”  
  
Sam nods pressing his lips together for a moment.  The pointed tip of his nose was slightly pink.  
  
“It’s fine, Dean.  We’re both dicks, okay?  I did dick things, you did dick things, and we’re both okay for it.”  
  
“Not really.  You’re possessed by an angel,” Dean reminds him, trying to make a joke.  
  
It falls flat, but Sam laughs anyway.  
  
The two look at each other for a long moment, then both turn their eyes to the morning ocean.  They can feel the time slipping away from them and they know that they will be separated again soon; Dean has made a bargain and Sam knows that he will keep it because Dean always keeps his word where it relates to him.  
  
He watches as Dean pulls out his phone and punches in a quick message.    
  
“Cas?”  Sam asks quietly.  
  
“Yeah,” Dean replies, clearing his throat, “Just…. told him where to meet up with you.”  
  
“Anything you want me to tell him?”  
  
The other hunter looks down for a moment, and Sam is aware suddenly of just how much the last ten years have aged his brother.  He’s still got the same strangely delicate features and the same solid jaw that saves him from being in any way feminine, but much of the boyish humour has gone from his face.  There are subtle frown lines in his forehead that are just as deep as the smile lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes.  
  
“Just tell him that I want him to keep fighting, and I want him to get rid of that grace.  Tell him I don’t want him to die,” he says, his voice surprisingly firm.  
  
For a moment, Sam wants to ask him if that’s really it, but he knows that it is.  He almost considers telling Dean that he knows, has always known, about him and the angel.  But it’s not the time, and he panics silently as he realizes that there may never be a time.  
  
He can’t let this happen.  
  
“Gadreel... hey, if you’re listening, I don’t want you to make this deal.”  
  
Dean looks at him in alarm, and is surprised to find himself already facing the angel’s intense eyes rather than his brother’s open expression.  He licks his lips and asks, “So, ah… ready?”  
  
Gadreel nods, and then Dean feels himself pulled backwards and cradled in something safe and bright.  He knows intuitively that it’s the angel’s grace, and he knows that this is where he’ll spend the rest of his existence; there is a strange absence of emotion, of both pain and pleasure, and already he feels his mind shutting down and falling asleep.  He will sleep forever in this warm, bright nothingness and that’s somehow all right.  
  
He has been forgiven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More self-indulgence here.
> 
> I don't know why, but I just really wanted to see Dean possessed by something. I feel like pretty much everyone else got possessed at one point or another, but Dean always seems to skate by with his possession cherry unpopped. I don't know why this bothers me... I guess 2 reasons. 1) I'd like to see Jensen Ackles have more opportunities to take on variations in his role (I mean, how many variations of Sam have we seen now?) and 2) I think Dean's untouchable status has made it so that he really can't relate to status changes in other people. I mean, he probably wouldn't have been so down on Sam if he'd gotten knocked down by letting someone else ride around in his meat suit. So anyway, yeah, Dean's got some angel cream filling right now, and not in the fun way.
> 
> Other indulgence? I would like it if just once, Sam just -got- that Dean was doing his best. I feel like in-show, each season has this formula of one of the brothers has a secret - the other finds out - obligatory fight and running away episode. It seems like they should know each other well enough by now to know that they don't make selfish choices, so if someone has a secret, there's a reason. So this time, Sam understands.


	10. Tremors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Metatron tantrums. Gadreel weighs his options. Kevin finds the garden. Abaddon wheels and deals.

Bartholomew feels unmoored.  He can feel the shifting imbalance of power, the bottom-heavy weight of too many angels on earth.   The planet groans on its axis, carrying an excess of massive, ground-bound creatures; the air heats with each flare of light that heralds the swift, true strike of an angel sword.  He can feel the disorder prickling constantly at the back of his skull, but he ignores the foreboding because he is powerless to stop it.  His only option is to turn the chaos into his own strength.  
  
The angelic war consumes him, prompting him to ignore the consequences that he knows may follow his actions.  He knows that grabbing for power is not allowed, but it has been so long since anyone has seen God and it has been just as long since anyone has actually been punished for wrongdoing. He hasn’t forgotten his father, not completely, but he _has_ forgotten how to fear him; he has forgotten that disobeying the natural order comes with a price.  He has forgotten that excessive pride is the greatest sin among angels.   
  
Metatron in his lonely heaven has not forgotten his father either, nor has he forgotten that there will be a price to pay for his pride.  He has taken the seat of God in the garden, where his father once dictated the contents of seven tablets to be written in by hand.   It is as much because he wants to be king as because he wants to provoke the true Lord, his father.  He turns his vessel’s face upward, searching, challenging, inviting the creator to return to smite him.    
  
He remembers his transformation at his father’s hands, when _his flesh was turned to flame, his veins to fire, his eyelashes to flashes of lightning, his eyeballs to flaming torches_.*  He doesn’t remember much of himself before then, but he know himself now and resents being raised up only to be discarded.  
  
Like many of the oldest archangels, the only angels who are capable of _remembering_ rather than just repeating worn fables, he wants to bask in the glow of God.  He remembers sitting at the feet of the Lord, covering his head with his wings in humility as he transcribed the design of the universe from his creator’s loving mouth.  He felt joy in being able to serve his maker, being permitted to sit beside him.  He longs for that closeness, that communion.  He doesn’t care if it will be a single radiant thunderclap that would extinguish his own light; to be in the presence of his father for even an instant would validate his entire existence.  
  
In the absence of God, he childishly tears it all down to build again.  
  
He has the components of the spell to set heaven to rights, but he won’t use them yet.  He feels system breaking down around him, but he will wait to correct the imbalance.  He will bait God to intercede, he will play chicken with the cosmos.  
  
He absently fingers the vial of trapped grace that he keeps in his pocket as he glares around the empty garden again.  Finding no one, hearing nothing, he takes flight to make a furious circuit of the world.  
  
  
\----------  
  
  
Castiel is strong enough now to cross the country in mere moments, but by the time he arrives it is already too late.  He sees the two brothers sitting side by side on the boardwalk bench, but he can tell even from a distance that Dean is no longer himself; he can see the span of green-gold wings catching the morning light, stretching upward and then relaxing slightly to shelter the taller man beside him.  
  
It’s a different sort of pain from the one that the cold water relieved and the rapid flight renewed.  He feels as though his massive angelic heart, his entire consciousness, has collapsed inward in the absence of the man who’d given him strength.  He staggers backwards, his hand pressed to the center of his chest as though he simply can’t draw breath.  In reality, it’s much worse than that.  
  
 _Dean.  Oh God, God, please.  Dean._  
  
Sam is very still.  Castiel watches as the younger Winchester simply sits, unmoving, with his broad shoulders slumped in defeat.  
  
“Now we can talk,” he hears Gadreel say with Dean’s soft, full mouth.  The intonation is wrong, the delivery is strange.  His voice is higher, softer; it is Dean without the gruff, put-on lower register that he had affected for so many years that it had simply become his voice.  
  
“We could talk before,” Sam says quietly, his tone dangerous.  
  
“But now we can talk to each other face to face.  I can touch you-”  
  
“You can _not_.”  
  
“What? Gadreel asks uncertainly.  
  
“You’re in my brother’s body.  You can _never_ touch me,” Sam says, looking at him with a cold sharpness that is alien to his normally sensitive feature set, “And even if we talk, I'll never be able to look at you without seeing him.”  
  
“But I love you,” the angel says with his usual blunt honesty, “And you-”  
  
“Can’t you see how disturbing it is to hear things like that out of Dean’s mouth?” Sam says, his nose wrinkled in disgust as he gets to his feet.  
  
He groans unexpectedly and lurches forward to grip the back of the bench to steady himself.  He is surprised by how weak he is without the angel’s steady application of grace; his muscles are tired and his insides ache.  He has the same burned out, constantly ill sensation that he had forgotten that he'd once had, but he knows intuitively that he won’t die.  
  
He half-wishes that he would.  
  
“You’re still weak, let me help you.”  
  
Sam knows that he needs to keep Gadreel nearby if he ever intends to get his brother back, but he isn’t ready to look at him yet.  He can’t stand to see the angel looking at him out of Dean’s familiar face.  He forces himself to straighten his spine, putting his shoulders back and standing to his full, impressive height before releasing his hold on the bench.  He shakes his head warningly when Gadreel begins to speak again, silencing him.  
  
It’s a strange power that he has over this ancient angel.  
  
When Gadreel stands as well, Sam looks past him to see Castiel staring.  He feels his chest tighten painfully as he immediately reads the unmasked sorrow on his features.  He swallows quickly, then passes by Gadreel to meet his friend on the boardwalk.  
  
“Dean,” Cas breathes as he nearly falls into Sam’s arms.  He remembers himself quickly, his angelic mind racing ahead, and adds politely, “It isn’t that I’m not happy to see you as yourself, Sam…”  
  
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Sam assures him quietly, hugging Cas tightly because he needs to hug _someone_.  He needs comfort at losing his brother, and, in dysfunctional way that he won’t admit aloud, he needs comfort for losing the angel who has been his constant companion for the past several months.  He feels as though he has been hollowed out and his hands are cold where they rest against the angel's warm sides.  
  
Castiel grips the back of his jacket, looking over his shoulder at Gadreel fixedly as though the situation will change if he just stares it down.  Finally, with some effort, he closes his eyes and rests his hot forehead against the ridge of Sam’s shoulder.  
  
“He planned to do this,” he breathes with some difficulty, “That’s why he sent me alone to complete the first trial.  That’s why he didn’t have me bring him to you.”  
  
Sam nods, momentarily unable to speak.  He takes a breath and lets it out slowly, forcing the air out until it feels like his lungs will implode.  He is so _empty_.  He stays close to his overwarm friend for a moment, then pulls back slowly, “I’m sorry, Cas.”  
  
For a moment, the angel seems as though he might say something quietly meaningful, something that would express the depth of his own loss.  However, even now he respects Dean’s constant need for secrecy, and he closes his mouth on his grief.  He nods, then says stoically, his voice barely audible, “I’m fine.  I’m sorry for your loss, Sam.”  
  
Castiel feels rather than sees Gadreel approach him, and when he pulls away from Sam completely he has his sword in his hand.  He knows that he lacks the strength to attack the angel who has taken residence in his lover’s body, but he still fixes on him with a furious glare and lets every ounce of his heaven fury radiate from him.  His shoulders are taut and his eyes blaze blue as he watches the taller angel watching him.  
  
“Brother, what have you done?”  
  
He realizes that he has unconsciously spread his moth-eaten wings in preparation for immediate fight or flight.  While Sam may not see them extended like garish, gorey Halloween decorations behind him, they have completely captivated Gadreel’s attention.  The other angel fearlessly reaches out and touches one of the bloody,  half-stripped pinions and it is only the fact that it’s _Dean’s_ fingers that prevents Castiel from cutting his hand off at the wrist.  
  
He knows that Gadreel is an old angel, one of the oldest, and that he can’t use the same trick that he had used on the fool in Salt Lake.  Gadreel knows what he did and what it is doing to him; he sees the decay on his angelic body and the pain radiating from behind the weary, heartbroken facade of the vessel.  
  
“You _know_ what I’ve done,” Castiel answers lowly, his voice almost feral.  
  
Sam looks at Cas critically, unable to see anything beyond his strained expression.  He asks uncertainly, “Hey, Cas…?”  
  
The angels look at him, both surprised and slightly pitying.  
  
“He has stolen another angel’s grace and it is consuming him.  He’ll die.”  
  
The impending loss, compounded on the events of the last ten minutes, are too much for the human man.  He staggers back a step to sit heavily on the bench again, his knees no longer supporting the weight of his weakened body or his mounting horror.  His mind flicks back to the empty terror of standing in the SUCROCORP lab, alone, in the wake of Dean and Cas’ disappearance following Dick Roman’s explosive death.  He hears Crowley’s taunting voice again, chilling his blood.  
  
 _Sorry, moose. Wish I could help. You certainly got a lot on your plate right now. It looks like you are well and truly... on your own._  
  
He _can’t_ be on his own again.  Not with Kevin dead at his hands, Dean traded away for him, and Cas eaten up by someone else’s grace.  Almost frantically, he presses his hands to his face, then drags his fingers back through his hair, understanding suddenly what Dean had wanted him to tell him.  
  
“Cas, you have to let it go.  That was the last thing Dean said, he wanted me to tell you to let it go because he doesn’t want you to die.”  
  
Castiel looks at him a moment, then at the angel wearing his lover’s face.  He smiles very slightly, as though he can still see Dean through the shimmering, radiant glow of Gadreel’s grace.  He closes his eyes, searching for the strength to speak.  
  
“That was… it was never really an option, Sam.  By the time that I realized that I wanted to live, that I could fight on even without angelic strength, it was already too late for me to expel it.  It has become my own grace.  I just… couldn’t tell Dean that.”  
  
Sam just stares in horror as he turns the words over and over in his head.  He turns his wide eyes to Gadreel, but won’t speak to him.  He presses his hand to his mouth, briefly holding in the sound of him choking on his own heartbreak.  
  
“Cas… why'd you do this?”  
  
“I had to set things right, Sam.  I had to restore heaven to pay for my mistakes,” Cas says quietly, “Though given the difficulty of completing the first trial, I do not believe that I will succeed.”  
  
“So what,” Sam demands hotly, directing his anger to this futility because it seems somehow more accessible than any of the other crushing defeats that he is currently facing, “You did this for nothing?  No, that's not okay.  None of this is… _none_ of-”  
  
He breaks off, covering his mouth with the palm of one of his long, strong hand again.  He closes his eyes tightly, rocking forward restlessly on the bench, his shoulders hunched tightly as he forces back a sob.  Maybe it is actually a scream.  He isn’t exactly sure, and neither feels as though it would be any worse than the other.  
  
After a moment, he sits up straight and tips his head back, letting his long hair fall back from his face.  He takes a deep breath, asserting his mastery over his emotions and his treacherous human body, then turns his eyes toward Gadreel.  
  
He can tell by looking at the angel that he would do anything that he said, save leaving him.  He knows from listening to his thoughts and knowing the whole of his powerful grace that Gadreel is, at heart, an honorable creature.    
  
“If… if you don’t help Cas finish these trials,” he says, meeting Gadreel’s confused expression with a fiery, determined glare, “I promise that I'll _kill_ you, Gadreel.”  
  
The threat is powerful, but the implications are stronger.  Sam will reject him completely should he refuse him, and that has become worse than death in his heart.  Gadreel already feels off-balanced without Sam as his soft-spoken, iron-firm guide; Dean had given himself fully as promised and was now silent, leaving Gadreel feeling surprisingly alone.    
  
All the same, Gadreel protests quietly, “Sam, I have sworn loyalty to Metatr-”  
  
“Do I look like I fucking care?”  
  
The angel considers that for a moment, then shakes his head, “I don’t believe that you do, no.”  
  
“So you can either help us or I’ll give you a thirty-second head start,” Sam informs him flatly, knowing that Gadreel won’t deny him.  There are two facts upon which he knows that he can rely - that Gadreel loves him with the entirety of his angelic heart, and that his decisions were absolute.  If the angel pledged his assistance, he would have no fear of betrayal.  
  
“I will do as you ask, in the hope of your forgiveness.”  
  
The man wants to tell him that he will never forgive him as long as he continues to possess his brother, but he knows that the intangible reward of reciprocated affection is a necessary motivator.  He nods slowly, “Thank you.”  
  
Castiel sheaths his sword, avoiding looking at the angel who has claimed his most beloved.  He looks down, letting his non-human vision take in the enormity of the broad wings and long limbs, the burning eyes and the radiant intelligence instead.  He can look at Gadreel this way, using only his angelic sight, without seeing the vessel that still breaks his heart.  
  
“What is your next task?” Gadreel asks, looking intently at his younger brother.  He doesn’t completely understand the history between the angel and the man whom he now occupies; he had only glimpsed pieces of their relationship through his interactions with Dean and his insight into Sam’s memories.  He doesn’t understand the extent of the other angel’s dependency on the hunter, nor does he understand that Castiel’s intimate knowledge and deep love is born from having held his bare soul in his hands.  He doesn’t understand why Castiel won’t look at him directly now that they are allies.  
  
Castiel addresses his statement to Sam without turning his face toward the other angel.  He can’t watch him speak with Dean’s mouth or watch him with those deep, intense green eyes.  But he can't reject Gadreel's assistance as he remembers Dean's words to him several days before.  _Good intentions mean that when the time comes you won't go it alone because - because you care more about getting it right than salvaging your pride._ Or sparing your own heart.  
  
“Where the components of the spell to expel the angels were thematically related to romantic love, the reverse is centered on loyalty.  A siren’s tongue forces a human to swear personal fidelity.  The second trial demands a token of military fealty.”  
  
  
\---------------------------  
  
  
It’s impossible to gauge the passage of time in heaven, but it feels like they have been traveling for days.  They’ve run out of stories to tell and have entered into a new stage of word games and bad jokes, which is less emotionally devastating than recounting personal sorrows but quickly turns surprisingly irritating.  Both Bobby and Michael have at various times started to lose their focus, requiring the other two to prompt them for identifying information.  
  
“What are we going to do when we find Metatron?” Kevin asks as they walk through someone’s lazy autumn afternoon.  
  
Neither of the other two men answer for a moment, and Kevin realizes that they are both beginning to fade again.  He sighs, wondering what they are doing taking on an archangel with only a dimly formed plan and not so much as a single weapon.  
  
He reaches over and prods his father to get his attention, then goes through the routine of making him state his name and tell some quirky personal anecdote.  His father tells a story that he has already heard several times, but he is pleased to know that his dad was still coherent enough to recall it.  He repeats the process with Bobby, who responds more quickly than his father and maintains his focus more easily after.  
  
Kevin has noticed that there have been more live souls as they’ve drawn closer to the garden; where they had once passed through memories that were empty or only contained one other sentient mind, the more recent scenes have often contained upwards of five, and most recently 11.  No one else seems to be moving with the same directed purpose as they are, but there is a measurable increase in population as they progress, as though others are also being unconsciously drawn toward the center of heaven.  
  
Their path opens out onto the platform where they join a crowd waiting to board an Old West passenger train.  Without so much as a word aloud they all pile into the carriage and take a group of empty seats together toward the back.  The inside is smoky and dim as men puff at pipes and ladies being sent West read from delicate little novels.  In addition to people in appropriate period dress, Kevin is aware of what appears to be a handful of medieval peasants, some Chinese immigrants, and a group of girls dressed like 1980’s mall rats.  No one seems to take notice of anyone else as they drift together through the memories of the train’s conductor.  
  
Bobby speaks up, “I feel like we’re gettin’ close now.  I don’t know why, but I’ve just got this… I don’t know, it’s like a tingle in my spine.”  
  
Michael nods a bit distractedly, “I don’t think we’re the only ones going there… but these other people are… they’re not very distinct, are they?  Look at how those guys are almost beginning to blur at the edges.  It’s like looking at them through the heat shimmers on the highway.”  
  
Kevin rubs his arms as though he is chasing off goosebumps, but the gesture is to ward off fear rather than any sort of physical sensation; even now, he feels nothing unless he makes a conscious effort to do so.  He realizes that even that is not likely true sensation as much as his mind supplying the appropriate memory of cold, heat, or softness.  
  
“Everything’s startin’ to look that way,” Bobby agrees, looking down at his own hands to verify that they are still as crisp and solid as they have ever been.  Satisfied that he is not blending into the scenery, he nods to Kevin before looking out the window for a moment.  
  
In that moment, he loses focus and needs Michael to revive him again.  
  
“You used to fix cars before you became a hunter,” Kevin reminds Bobby to get him started again, “And then you became everyone’s mission control, right?”  
  
“Yeah, I yeah, I remember,” Bobby replies, waving him off almost self-consciously.  
  
As an afterthought, Kevin adds, “Hey, hid you know that after you died, Garth sort of took up the torch?  He became the research librarian and the call center for all the hunters.”  
  
“ _Garth_?” Bobby said incredulously, expelling a forceful puff of air in lieu of a laugh, “Now I have heard everything.”  
  
When the train stops, they climb to their feet and disembark to find themselves outside of a clean, modern butterfly observatory that Kevin remembers fondly from a road trip to the Detroit Zoo.  It's nestled in among footpaths and animal enclosures, the rounded, bell-shaped glass top shining in the summer sun above the tops beautifully landscaped trees and bushes.  Kevin remembers being much shorter when he last visited, much less jaded.  He closes his eyes for a moment, remembering holding on to his parents' hands and letting his weight dangle between them as his father pulled him up like a yo-yo to balance his weight on his feet again.  He'd been so small.

He is surprised when his father reaches over and takes his hand, giving it a brief squeeze.  His eyes are clear and bright because this is his own history; there is no contradictory soul's memories trying to overpower his own.  At least at the moment, in this place, Michael Trans knows exactly who he is and where he had come from.

Crowds of souls mill around the outside of the butterfly house, all prohibited entry by a handful of attendants at the front door.  Kevin doesn't remember there being crowd control, or even any difference between admission to the zoo proper and the conservatory.  
  
“So,” Bobby says with a frown, “How do we get in?”  
  
Kevin shakes his head, then slides his hands into the pocket of his hoodie.  His fingers curl around a familiar cardstock nub that’s wedged into the inner seam along with some lint and tissues that have gone through the wash several times.  
  
He extracts the paper and is surprised to find that it is a faded red-orange ticket that reads “Admit One.”  It's an obvious invitation and he feels a thrill of anxiety as he looks at it.  
  
“I, um, I seem to have a ticket.”  
  
\---------------------------------  
  
Abaddon ignores a petulant quiver of the smoking bedrock beneath their feet as she guides a gleaming, beautiful pair of angels through the corridors of the expansive palace that she has taken for herself in Hell.  In Crowley’s absence, the impressive real estate belonging to the former King of Hell has been left vacant.  And while she finds his sharp, modern style of interior decorating to be tacky and irritatingly gauche, it is nothing that can’t be overcome with a bit of charred flesh, some decorative weaponry, and few artful spatters of human blood.  
  
The angels, Omniaphael and Deborah, walk close together despite not knowing each other well.  They are lesser angels, normally simple shepherds of heaven, and this is their first venture into the Pit.  They don’t like it and are eager to leave, but they have been lead to believe that Hell might possibly be the safest place for them.  The distant screams of tortured souls does little to reassure them of that fact, but they are careful to keep their obvious discomfort from being shown on their human vessels' faces; they both know that that would be rude, and rudeness to the acting Queen of Hell did not seem to be a wise choice.  
  
Abaddon is still wearing a beautiful woman, but they can see her true face behind the pinup makeup and soft red hair.  Few angels have ever met a knight of Hell, but these angels had never even met a demon face to face before this morning.  She is disgusting and truly horrifying, but something about her naked power compels and fascinates them, so they follow (but not too close) as she guides them into a surprisingly spacious modern office.   
  
It is a reciprocal fascination, in some ways.  While Abaddon’s feelings on angels have not changed, there is something pleasurable about looking at their clean wings, their elegant bodies, and their glowing, soulful eyes.  Demons enjoy blood and horror, but it doesn't mean that they are unable to recognize beauty or want to keep it for themselves.  Abaddon looks at these angels as less than animals, more as pretty decorations; she would be perfectly content to keep these two in a cage with their wings clipped.  But like all beautiful things, demons cannot keep them for long without tearing them asunder.  
  
As she gestures for them to sit, she murmurs smoothly, “I do appreciate your coming all the way down here to meet with me… I would normally leave simple contract work to my assistants, but I felt that this deserved a sort of… _personal touch._ ”  
  
Almost on cue, another tremor rocks the room, rattling a number of delicate objects off of the shelves and onto the dark granite floor tiles.  Abaddon makes an impatient sound but does not move to retrieve them.  Instead, she walks lazy confidence about the room as she speaks, deliberately ignoring the shattered vase and the obscene little carved ivory figures on the floor at her feet.  She enjoys this.  There is something delicious about terrifying these angels, then making them taint their grace by entering into a demon bargain.  Human bargains were a dime a dozen, but making an angel fall took _skill_. 

Crowley could go fuck himself.  
  
“You see," she begins thoughtfully, her voice almost musical, "The world seems to be in a particularly volatile state of flux right now; between the former King of Hell’s disappearance and the angelic civil war… there just doesn’t seem to be anyone who is completely safe”

She pauses to smile horribly at them.  
  
“But,” she says, and the sound is pleasantly percussive, “Some places, and some positions, are safer than others.  If you agree to pledge your loyalty to me, I will personally assure your safety from both Malachi and Bartholomew.  I can set a full-time demonic guard of 15 each, all of whom would readily lay down their lives on my command to protect you.”  
  
Deborah nods thoughtfully.  Prior to their expulsion, she had never been outside of heaven.  Her days had been spent gently tending to the souls of departed humans, which had brought her a deep, comfortable peace.  Being thrown to earth and forced to take a physical form was painful and jarring, and she had been constantly frightened by the screams that she had heard from around the world.  The panicked voices of her dying brothers. 

“What are the terms?”  
  
“They’re not complex.  I will give you the full document for your perusal as well as twenty-four hours to come to a full decision.  The short version is that when I call for you, you must answer the summons to serve in my army.  While I have an almost endless supply of demons, most lack the speed, intelligence, and overall finesse of even the tiniest angel.”  
  
"Neither of us are soldiers," Deborah points out quietly, almost nervously, "We both were shepherds."

"That only means that you haven't gotten your wings dirty yet.  I will train you," the demon replies, her white teeth glinting almost obscenely, " _Personally_."

Both angels shiver at the thought. But at the same time, they are aware that their lack of martial skills makes them weak, against both demons and angels.  Not every class of angel was taught to fight, but every denizen of heaven carried a sword. 

Omniaphael tilts his head to the side, “Against whom will your army fight?”  
  
“It’s not really important,” she says silkily, “The important part is that we will win.  Everyone right now is vying for power with the eventual goal of transforming the earth into their personal heaven.  What makes heaven ‘heaven?’  Being the privileged group, of course... regardless of who wins, their followers will have the favored position in the new hierarchy.  I am offering you a favored position in my hierarchy as well as protection in the interim.”  
  
The angels seem uncertain, but they haven’t so much as spread their wings to make a retreat.  
  
The ground rumbles again ominously.   Abaddon notes absently that it seems to do that quite a bit when she brings angels into the pit.    
  
“Now,” she said, licking her deeply rouged lips, “I will give you your contracts for your review and I look forward to hearing your decision.”


	11. Doubt/Resolve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Metatron brings up valid points. Kevin meets another prophet. Sam realizes something important.

Charlie does not handle Gadreel’s arrival at the bunker with grace or tact.  Instead, she handles it with a lot of verbal abuse, levelled at both Dean himself and the angel riding him around, followed by a semi-panicked retreat to the bedroom that she had claimed for herself upon her arrival.  She slinks out an hour or so later to apologize to Sam and greet him properly, but it is obvious that she is shaken and upset about their new angelic bunkmate and its implications for the elder Winchester.  She will not look at him or speak to him, despite his assurances that he means her no harm.  
  
Castiel and Gadreel speak briefly of their plans, but it becomes obvious after a short time that the younger angel’s strength is flagging and his remaining emotional fortitude has been all but decimated.  After the three human occupants of the bunker have eaten and settled in to pore over tomes of angelic lore, Castiel excuses himself and promptly falls into a solid sleep in Dean’s bed.  
  
Gadreel, who does not require sleep, walks the halls of the bunker restlessly until he finds himself on the front steps, staring into the inky depths of the Kansas starfield.    
  
As he looks at the night sky, he reflects on the passage of time and the stars that have been born and died during his lifetime.  The constellations weren’t what they had been before his imprisonment, and this is a source of quiet wonder to him.  In his cell, he hadn’t been able to see the sky or stretch his wings; the passage of time had been impossible to measure.  He had felt forgotten by his brothers and his creator, left to a solitary void in an airless prison.  His wings had chafed against his bonds and his angelic form had atrophied and begun to break down in the absence of light.  Even so, he couldn’t die, only wait alone with his thoughts.  
  
Now he has access to the sky again, and rather than anger at his past treatment there is only joy.  He stands tall and arches back, letting his deep gold-streaked green feathers spread against the map of the stars.  Looking up, he half wants to take flight and leave the world behind.  He might be able to forget the brothers who hate him, the father who left him, and the human man who refuses to love him.  He could throw himself into the depths of the endless sky, letting the empty darkness slide frictionlessly over his wings, over his vessel’s face and limbs.  He could take in the stars and warm himself, forget himself and rest in their blazing hearts.  
  
He turns his gaze down to his vessel’s scarred hands, contemplating the roadmap of raised lines that crossed his palms and forearms.  He hasn’t explored Dean’s memories yet out of a strange polite regard for his beloved’s brother, but he now immerses himself just deeply enough to remember the hunter slicing his arms with silver knives to verify his humanity and cutting into his palms to craft angel-banishing sigils. The images intrigue him, but he doesn't look further; it seems like a betrayal of his intimacy with Sam to know another so well.   
  
He instead focuses on the aspects of Dean that do belong to him.  He lifts his hands to touch his face, mapping the contours of the skull under his skin.  His skin is smooth, free of the scars and bruises that seem to marr the rest of his body;  his nose is thin, his mouth soft but narrow.  His cheekbones are defined but not prominent, his jaw strong and graced with several days’ worth of heavy stubble.  He can feel the circles under his eyes rather than see them, can press his fingers along the shallow wrinkles around his eyes and brow.  His vessel’s eyelashes are long as they brush against his palms.  
  
More subtly, reliant on his angelic senses, he can feel the network of veins and capillaries under his skin that bring healthy color to his face and lips.  He can sense the vibrant pigments of his eyes and the fair freckles that the sun has peppered across his skin. He doesn’t have to, but he inhales and lets the breath out slowly, enjoying the sensation as the air passes between his lips.  
  
“Like your new vessel, do you?”  
  
He jumps slightly at the sound of Metatron’s sharp, nasal voice, dropping his hands to his lap and looking up at the short, unimpressive vessel that houses one of the most unusual archangels crafted by God.  
  
“It seems like a lateral move, from where I’m standing,” the scribe says, raising his eyebrows.  He has his hand on his sword, but his posture isn’t threatening.  
  
Gadreel rises to his feet as well, momentarily lacking a reply.  Instead, he just brings his own sword to his hand and meets the archangel’s calculating, intelligent eyes.    
  
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Metatron asks.  
  
A moment’s surprise registers on Gadreel’s face as he realizes that Metratron  _knows_.  He knew that he would, but he had hoped for at least a few days to gather his thoughts and formulate a strategy before he was forced to face his former ally.  It does confirm one thing though - Metatron is obviously watching the world from God’s seat in the garden, so there will be few things not known to him in coming days.  
  
This omniscience is not appropriate for an angel, even an archangel, and Gadreel feels a strange flicker of fear as he looks the other angel.  Sam had saved him from falling again in the name of a would-be God.  The lesser angel feels himself rallying as he remembers that he would do anything for Sam Winchester, who he believes now to be the complement to his grace and the compass to his reason.  He is the reason he walked away from his agreement and had become his reason for almost everything.  He will fight against Metatron, all of the angels, and all of the demons because Sam has asked him to do so.  
  
“I have joined with Sam Winchester.”  
  
“Oh, the _Winchesters_ , hm.”  
  
He dislikes arguing with a laconic angel; he always found the quiet ones to be dull.  An angel who didn’t debate at length always came off as simple in his pretentious mind; how could a godly animal that was forged from thought fail to speak?  How could this simple creature before him have been entrusted with such a task from their father?  What a joke.  Perhaps he had, as Gadreel seemed to think, been fated to fail.  
  
“You _do_ know what happens to angels who ally themselves with the Winchesters, don’t you?  No?  Well, that's all right.  You’re naive, you’re sheltered; you’ve been locked up since practically creation, after all.  So let me tell you.  No matter what you’ve been told, you just signed your own death warrant.  Even - especially, actually, _especially_ the Winchesters’ closest allies die terribly - it’s _their_ curse, but it will kill you. And as long as you look like that,” Metatron’s gaze swept derisively upward from Dean’s scuffed boots to the crown of his dirty blond head, “You aren't even that.  By taking that _specific_ vessel, you have made yourself an enemy.  Sam will be trying to find ways to get rid of you.  The first thing that you need to know is that you will never be more important than his brother.  ”  
  
Gadreel looks down at the sword in his vessel’s hand, then back to the archangel.  He has talked to Sam for hours and he knows the content of his beloved’s heart; he knows that while Sam is angry with him now, while he struggles with this particular human face, the mortal man’s soul loves his own.  Sam will not ultimately reject him and he will not betray him.  
  
“I’ve made my choice.”  
  
Metatron laughs.  He sees Gadreel plainly for the fool that he is, a weak-minded angel, like Castiel, who has fallen for a mortal man.  How easily had the brilliant tactician, the infamous Castiel been tricked by his cunning?  These heart-guided angels were weak creatures, easy to manipulate because angels were not supposed to mimic human emotion.  He feels the weight of the dying angel’s grace in his pocket and feels a warm glow of pleasure that plays as light across his true form.  
  
He knows that he can outreason the other angel, who has been cut off from the world while Metatron has only grown in eloquence and intelligence.  Only the most intelligent creatures hunt for sport.  
  
“For Sam Winchester,” he mocks, “For _Sam Winchester_.  Well, aside from the fact that he will eventually kill you for taking his brother as a vessel, you must remember that he is mortal.  He’s hardly better than dust and water.  How long do you think he’ll live?  At best 40, 45 years?  You would give up a favored place in heaven, among your finest brothers, for a creature that you won’t want ten minutes after he’s dead?”  
  
He practically howls with laughter, “And if you cross me, I will _never_ allow you into heaven to rejoin him.  You can stay down here with the other little monkeys and outcast angels, and you can know, you can _know_ , Gadreel, that I will hound his afterlife and keep him on the run.  His soul may be immortal, but that only means I can make heaven into hell for him for eternity.”  
  
Gadreel is silent as he looks at the other man.  Again, he has no retort; he can see the truth in Metatron’s words, as much as he would like to write them all off as lies.  Archangels rarely made idle threats because they didn't need to - everything that Metatron has said is within his power.

His voice is soft but forceful as he asks, “What would you have me do, Metatron?  Betray the one I love?”  
  
“I will assure his safety,” Metatron says smoothly, “I will see that he is protected from anyone who would hurt him… and when we have recreated heaven, we will swiftly take him and he can accompany you forever in my garden.”  
  
The other angel’s resolve waivers.  
  
“Take it from me: ditch that vessel and get the soul inside out of your way.  Send him up to me.  Then, once that's settled, resume your work,” Metatron tells him with a slimy smile.  He leans in close to Gadreel and takes his vessel’s hand and turns it palm up.  After placing another note, another list of names, in the angel’s hand, then curls his fingers around it, “As long as you do as I tell you, you will be rewarded for your loyalty.”  
  
With a rush of multicolored wings, Gadreel is alone again in the starlit darkness. 

 

\----------------------

  
  
Kevin is hesitant to part ways with his companions, but he is the only one with a ticket and the attendants are insistent.  They are also, Bobby discovers, extremely strong.  They possess a particular solidity that isn’t consistent with a memory, but is likewise neither a human soul nor an angel.  He makes the judgment that they are simply a force of heaven, and they are unfortunately impossible to bypass.  
  
“We’ll wait for you out here,” Bobby tells him calmly, “When you’re done doin’ what you’re doin’, you just come back and meet us here.”  
  
Michael leans over to hug him tightly, “I know where we are and I know who I am, Kev.  There’s nothing dangerous for me here… it’s just a place.”  
  
He nods in the older hunter’s direction, then affirms, “And I’ll make sure that Bobby doesn’t drift off, all right?  This’ll be fine; I know you can do this.  I know it sounds weird, but I know you’ll figure out what needs to happen.  You’re my smart kid.”  
  
Kevin feels less confident on both of those points, but it is hard to doubt himself when his father believes in him so completely.  He says goodbye to both and surrenders his ticket at the door, then hesitantly ventures inside.  
  
There are instructional posters on the wall that explain the life cycles of butterflies with a combination of photos and bright, child-friendly diagrams.  In the background, a large flat screen television in the wall is playing a looped video of a caterpillar’s voyage to becoming a butterfly.  The video is narrated by children using short, simple sentences in voices that are vaguely chirpy and annoying; they catch Kevin’s attention briefly, but not in the way that seems dangerous like other distractions during the walk to the garden.  Nothing seem to be causing him to lose his focus.  By contrast, everything here is crisp and bright like an overtuned high definition television.  
  
Signs point to different portions of the exhibit - the conservatory, a hatching room, a gift shop.  The conservatory, the butterfly garden itself, is the obvious choice. 

He knows that he doesn't have a corporeal heart, but he feels it pounding as he walks through a set of double-doors into a small room covered in mirrors.  He remembers this part of the facility.  The attendant, who does not seem to be present in this version, explained that the mirrors were to make sure that there were no butterflies stowing away on shirts and jackets when people left.  
  
After taking a deep breath, he pushes the doors open and enters the moist, overwarm butterfly enclosure.  The sticky air, or more accurately the  _memory_ of the sticky air, momentarily makes his breath halt in his throat as though he is choking.  It is all windows, all the way to the domed glass ceiling some thirty feet above his head, but he realizes the the outside world is formeless and unclear except overhead.  The sky, though sometimes masked with clouds or dry-brushed in stars, had been the only constant as they had walked through heaven.  Now, the sun shines down on him through the assortment of tropical plants chosen to suit the environment.  
  
Around him, butterflies flit from plant to plant before coming to rest on the lush, waxy green leaves.  One butterfly near him has its large, dull wings folded primly together as it perches on a leaf.  Almost bored, it opens and closes its wings, exposing a vibrant flash of blue with each movement.  Something about it reminds him of angels, their hidden wings and their glowing, veiled grace.  He wonders if, in this form, he could look directly at an angel in its true form.  
  
Kevin watches the butterfly for a moment longer before turning his attention to the walkways.  It is quiet and remarkably still; save the sound of the man-made waterfalls and colorful, random movement of the butterflies, it could have been a still photograph.  He is nearly convinced that he is alone when a movement along the path catches his eye.  A man with short, wavy brown hair and a brown beard leans over to inspect one of the larger, more colorful creatures.  Kevin watches as the man gently nudges the butterfly’s delicate legs to prompt it to climb on to his hand, where it shifts a bit and resettles its tiny feet for better purchase on his fair skin.  
  
With the small creature resting just above his second knuckle, he raises his hand to his face to peer at the colorful patterning on its wings and its fine, curling proboscis.  There is a simple pleasure on his face as he watches the insect flex and relax its wings over and over again.  
  
“Hello?” Kevin calls cautiously as he takes a tentative step closer.  
  
The man looks up at him, his soft hazel eyes clear and curious, “Hello.”  
  
Kevin ventures closer, his smooth, youthful brow furrowed slightly in consideration, “Who are you?”  
  
“I’m Chuck,” he answers readily, his gaze skipping between the butterfly on his hand and the newcomer, “And you must be one of the prophets.”  
  
“Yes…” Kevin says uncertainly, “How did you know?”  
  
“This is the garden,” the man replies, letting his gaze wander the breadth of the room, “This is the closest that you can come to God.  All prophets find their way here eventually.”  
  
He gives his wrist a deft little flick and the butterfly takes flight.  It has fat, blocky wings and its movements are clumsy and charmingly childish as it flaps lazily to a cluster of dark red flowers.  Chuck watches the plant sway with the creature’s weight before turning his attention to Kevin again.  
  
“Is God here?”  
  
“Metatron is, from time to time,” he answers.  
  
“Is Metatron god?”  
  
“No,” Chuck says with a firm, sad shake of his head.  He lowers his voice slightly, reaching out to companionably pull the younger prophet up against his side, “But he really likes pretending.”  
  
Kevin mulls over that statement from the other prophet for a moment.  There is something about the other man that makes his nerves buzz, but he can’t quite place what it is.  He wonders if bringing two prophets in close proximity creates interference the way microphones hum and whine when they are too close together.  What he feels is similar to the sound of angels talking, prickling up the back of his spine and buzzing in his teeth.  
  
“You’re the one who wrote the Supernatural books,” Kevin says, suddenly making the connection.  
  
Chuck laughs softly, almost self-consciously, “Please tell me you’re not a fan.”  
  
“Not exactly,” Kevin says, meeting his eyes with a smile that surprises even himself, “I’m a friend of the Winchesters.”  
  
“Oh,” the older man answers in surprise, “Oh.  Well, ha… decidedly _not_ a fan then, I'm guessing.”  
  
He laughs in a short, vaguely uncomfortable way though he doesn’t actually seem to be too bothered.  It may have been different if Sam and Dean had been here to stare him down, but for now it’s more of a funny story than anything else.  
  
“I didn’t really have visions the way you did,” Kevin says thoughtfully, looking at the other man as though trying to find similarities between them, “I mean, I saw little glimpses of things, but nothing big. Nothing narrative.  I just… kind of translated some tablets.”  
  
“Well,” Chuck says thoughtfully, walking the younger man down the path, “All prophets have different stuff to do.  My job was to write the Winchester Gospel, yours was to translate some tablets.”  
  
He raises his eyes to the incomplete canopy above them, “I’ve heard about the tablets, though.  They’re really… pretty freaking amazing.  If you can get all of them, you can learn just about everything about the Big Design.  Far as I’ve been able to figure out, though, the only thing aside from God who knows what's on every tablet is the guy who wrote it all down for him.”  
  
“Metatron,” Kevin replies, more as a statement than a question.  
  
Chuck nods, releasing Kevin to go and check out a butterfly that was drinking from a bead of moisture that had pooled in a fallen leaf, “Yeah.  But man, what I have learned has been pretty awesome.  The design is so intricate and really, _pretty nearly flawless_.  And for being so complex, there are only a few cardinal rules.  Angels go in heaven, demons go in hell.  Humans and monsters go on Earth, and when they die that can go to point A, B, or C.  There are a couple exceptions - like Lucifer is an angel who people think is in hell, but the cage isn’t technically even part of Hell so that neatly sidesteps that one.  But yeah, pretty much as long as those rules aren't broken, the universe keeps on keeping on.”  
  
He looks up, cocking his head side to side thoughtfully with a half-shrug, “Not that it means that the human race does, but everything else, y’know.”  
  
Kevin nods, watching him.    
  
“So the angels being kicked out of heaven is a bit of an issue.”  
  
“A bit… but I’ve heard that there are a few interested parties, including Metatron himself, who are working on unlocking it,” Chuck admits.  
  
“But I thought the spell was irreversible.”  
  
“It’s not.”  
  
“Wait - ‘you’ve heard?’”  
  
Chuck nods and gestures for him to leave the path that loops the conservatory.  Kevin follows him uncertainly toward the center of the garden, which is actually much bigger than he remembers.  
  
He certainly doesn’t remember the steep drop-off in the center of the conservatory, which seems to bend reality in a way that hurts Kevin's brain.  It reminds him of staring at the angel tablet and feeling the edges of his peripheral vision rumbling and his mind stretching to try to accomodate concepts that wouldn't fit in the human brain.  Looking down this strange hole in the universe, from which it seemed that they could view the entirety of creation, he has the distinct impression that the view wasn't intended for them.  His urge is to look away, but Chuck walks toward the end of the manicured ground and prudently stops just a few feet before the edge. 

Gesturing, he says, “You hear a lot from up here.”  
  
Kevin looks at the other prophet thoughtfully.  He seems older and infinitely wiser than Kevin feels, and he doesn’t think it could possibly be from having lived a longer mortal life.  No, there is something decidedly _other_ about the prophet that he can’t quite place.    
  
He glances around the garden, which shimmers in ways that a real garden does not, then looks back to the figure staring introspectively down at the world.  He feels that strange tingle in his spine again as he remembers everything that he has read about the garden.  About angels.  About God.  
  
“Hey, Chuck.  You said all prophets come to the garden… so where are the other prophets?”  
  
The dark-haired man looks at him in surprise, but he is spared having to formulate a response by the rustle of wings.  He reaches toward Kevin and grasps his wrist, pulling him close, “Okay, you know, nevermind that right now.  There are two things that you need to know - the first is that angels don’t really fight with swords, they fight with words.   What you see as an angel’s blade is an embodiment of grace, which is the language of angels made solid.  Angelic battle is debate and you understand Enochian even if you can’t speak it.”  
  
He takes a quick breath, lowering his voice, “The second thing - a human soul is immortal.  Metatron can hurt you, but you have no body and he can’t kill you, not in heaven.”  
  
He pushes Kevin back toward the path, whispering harshly, “Now _RUN_!”  
  
Kevin stumbles, then catches himself and glances fearfully in the direction where he knows Metatron to be.  He isn’t ready to face an archangel empty-handed, debate club skills or not.  He licks his lips and turns back to Chuck, demanding, “How do you know-”  
  
He cuts off abruptly when he sees that the other man has vanished.  
  
  
\--------------------------------------------

  
  
Sam wakes early, sore and miserable.  With a quiet grumble, he forces himself out of bed and into his running shoes, but realizes as he walks through the bunker that he is too weak to put the strain of exercise on his body.  Angry with himself and just about everything else, he nearly scalds himself in the shower when he slowly turns the heat up until he can’t take it any hotter.  
  
Dressed again, his skin an almost uncomfortable shade of pink, he turns his attention to the things that are still within his control.  Charlie and Dorothy are asleep, still, Cas is dead to the world (though he wished he had thought of a different phrase just now), and he doesn't care where Gadreel is as long as he isn't anywhere near him.  He is not ready to deal with his immortal soulmate trucking around in his brother's body and expecting things to be okay.  No, not normal.  _Not_ okay.  It is so many kinds of _not okay_ that he can't even think about it for too long without feeling angry tears pricking at his eyes. 

He needs his brother back.  He needs for Dean to knock him around a bit, make some flippant comments.  _Hey right, yeah.  You've heard of Stockholm Syndrome, right?_   _Your crush on Gad ain't healthy, bro._ He needs Dean to _not_ be Gadreel, which is pretty much like being dead.  But worse, because Sam doesn't feel like he can grieve as long as his brother's body is just fucking walking around.  All he can do is obsess over how to undo what his stupid idiot big brother had done.  He needs for Dean to _not_ have sacrificed himself for him again, because they kept promising that they weren't going to do that crap anymore.  


He remembers abruptly that he is trying to focus on the things that are still within his control.  The Deandreel situ is not.  He takes a deep breath, needing a direction, before making a sharp turn toward the dungeon.  He has the intention of grilling Crowley for the full details of the new trials - which weren’t really trials so much as tasks to collect the ingredients of a new spell - before Gadreel and Castiel leave.  That is a goal with a distinct beginning - middle - end and a clear objective.  
  
He feels ill thinking of Castiel forced to accompany an angel with his brother’s face.  Even if he was _actually_ oblivious to the romantic undertones, he had been hearing about that “profound bond” crap for years now; he knew that his friend would suffer simply watching Gadreel.  
  
His anger rises up again, and he thinks that maybe it would feel good to rough up the demon.  The demon who he now knew had lied to him on Gadreel's order, the demon who had been swilling his blood like narcotic highballs.  He thinks that maybe it would feel good to _kill_ the demon who had been laughing at them for months.  
  
However, that is not the demon who is doubled over, moaning quietly in pain when Sam opens the door.  Sam stops and simply watches as Crowley wraps his unbound arms about his chest and takes heaving, gasping breaths as he tries to center himself.  He seems to hold his breath for a moment, shaking his head frantically, before he fumbles for one of the syringes on the table.  
  
He awkwardly maneuvers it as though his hands are clumsy and his motor skill weak, uncapping the needle and raising it to the inside of his left arm.  There he pauses, his chest heaving, before he forcefully sets it aside.  
  
“This isn’t the worst…” Sam hears him whisper, “Need to wait…”  
  
Crowley is dimly aware that someone is in the room with him.  He knew it would happen eventually. He spent a portion of his every day as a starving, dehydrated, guilty mortal man; it was only a matter of time before someone timed their visit to see him at his worst.  At his most human.  
  
He opens his eyes slowly to see Sam, wishing he was demon enough to laugh.  But his heart isn’t in it, and more than that, his throat is so dry that the thought of laughing almost hurts.  
  
“Crowley?” Sam asks uncertainly, walking toward him.  
  
“Ah, Moose…” he wheezes in response, putting on his best impression of his demonic self, “Now you’re in on the big secret…”  
  
Sam understands almost instantly and is unsettled by a strange mixture of emotions ranging from disgust to pity.  Crowley is trapped between human and demon… and it isn’t as though he is just some concurrent cocktail of both.  It is more like a time share, and during the human times, like now, he suffers.  The knowledge that he has brought him to this state makes Sam consider the cruelty of what he's done and hold it up against all of Crowley's many, varied sins.  
  
Sam’s brow furrows as he watches him, and then with the compassion that he sometimes wishes that he didn’t have, he walks over to get a cup of water from the small utility sink in the corner.  He lets the water run for a moment, waiting for the rust to run clear, then presses the cup into Crowley’s hands.  
  
When the man nearly drops it, almost too weak to lift it, Sam takes it back from him and holds it to his lips.  He drinks deeply, messily, almost choking on the liquid after having gone so long without.  
  
Breathing hard, he raises his dark eyes to Sam’s consideringly, “You’re the reason I’m like this.  I got Dean’s blood and I felt guilty and worthless.  I got yours and suddenly I’m a compassionate effing bleeding heart…”  
  
Sam closes his eyes, summoning patience.  He can tell that even now, Crowley is attempting to bolster himself and hide the aching humanity within him.  Without saying anything, he sits down in front of him at the small table and picks up one of the vials of cold blood.  Three have been used, but three remain; Sam recognizes that the demon has been rationing them, saving them for the worst seizures of his humanity.  
  
He turns the syringe over in his hands, seaming together the full story in his mind.  
  
“Dean’s?”  
  
Crowley nods, “He was supposed to finish what you started.  He _promised_ me that he would do it before the week was out.”  
  
The man presses his trembling lips briefly, feeling his throat tighten.  He takes a calming breath, then says, “But then _here you are_ , not a fucking drop of angel in you, and I can only assume that your brother has done something characteristically stupid.”  
  
“Well, he won’t be completing the cure, if that’s what you mean,” Sam replies flatly.  
  
The demon turned human brings his fist down weakly on the tabletop, “Damn him!”  
  
He pushes himself back slightly in the chair in a gesture that would have been petulant if it had not been so heartbroken.  He tips his head head back and drags in a labored breath through his gritted teeth, then expells it as a hiss.  After a moment, he scrubs at his face with his dirty fingers, adding to the dark smudges under his eyes.  Looking at him, Sam realizes that he looks half-dead.  
  
“So what now then?” Crowley demands desperately.  
  
Sam watches, his eyebrows drawn down in thought.  He knows the answer to the question and it doesn’t scare him as much as he thinks that it should.  He realizes that it is because he has almost nothing to lose: his family is dead, his brother is gone, and Castiel will be dead within days.  Aside from Garth and Charlie, there is literally no one on Earth with any claim on him; he'd be hard-pressed to even list ten living people by name.  
  
He leans forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table as he regards Crowley with a deep, calm clarity.  
  
“We finish it.  Everything.”  
  
Sam knows that Gadreel’s healing can’t truly cure the deep, permanent damage that the trials have caused.  He remembers Castiel saying that there were injuries that he didn't even understand, and he knew that his body couldn't be healed because it wasn't  _meant_ to be healed.  He had made a choice, and everything that has happened since he failed to complete the final trial has happened on borrowed time.

There have been consequences.  Had he simply completed the trial, perhaps Gadreel would never never found them and Dean would just be good old self-loathing, pain in the ass Dean.  Cas wouldn’t be dying.  Kevin would be alive.  That new Winchester family could have been all right.  
  
Even so, he can’t completely regret the months he had spent in the bunker learning to live again and watching his brother heal.  He hadn’t missed a single time that Dean had cleaned the kitchen or  chosen a cup of coffee over a tumbler of whiskey.  And while there had been secrets and lies, there had also been a closeness that the two had lost years before.  He had found his own place, finally, as a Man of Letters.  For the first time, he hadn't been trying to escape the life he had because he was doing things that were both intellectual _and_ meaningful.  
  
Even with an angel living in his subconscious, he had been happy.  
  
He takes a deep breath and says, “As soon as Cas and Gadreel leave, you and I will go.  We’ll do it, okay.  But I need your word that you won’t fight me, because I really haven’t got the energy.  This is gonna take all I’ve got, Crowley, but I’m going to finish it.”  



	12. Battles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two kinds of angelic battle; one with swords, one with words.

The first name on Metatron’s list is an angel named Adeophale, a warrior angel whose true form was the size of a mountain and whose six wings could span Lake Superior from coast to coast.  He had recently joined Abaddon’s army, but Metatron wanted him for his heaven.  He was a great deal bigger than Gadreel, but the ancient angel was determined to meet him with confidence, eloquence, and grace.  He lands lightly beside the angel, who has taken on a surprisingly diminutive human vessel, and nods in greeting, “Hail, Adeophale.”  
  
“Hail,” the other angel says in greeting, looking over his brother’s sturdy vessel.  There is carefully concealed jealousy in his eyes as he watches the outcast wield the sword of Michael, but he remains cordial.  
  
They are out in the open, surrounded by humans shopping for last minute Christmas gifts.  Normally, either would be comfortable in the presence of the lesser creatures, but both know that there is a topic of major importance to be discussed and they would prefer to speak in their natural voices.    
  
“Would you join me for a walk, brother?” Gadreel asks.  
  
The stronger angel nods, and slips his hand into the pocket of his vessel’s long overcoat.  The motion briefly exposes the sword at his belt as a silent reminder that he wouldn’t hesitate to put it through the Gadreel’s face, but his movements are otherwise measured and non-violent.  
  
The resume their conversation only moments later on a frozen mountaintop in Colorado.    
  
“What are you looking for, Gadreel?”    
  
“I am looking for Abaddon,” he answers quietly, casting a glance upward as though he would be able to see Metatron looking down on him.  He turns his intense green gaze back on the other angel, who considers this thoughtfully.  
  
“May I ask why?”  
  
“I’m aware that you are now a soldier in her service and I would like to be the same.”  
  
“I had heard that you were working on recruitment for Metatron.”  
  
Gadreel shakes his head, “I have realized that this was a grave error.  While I believe that Metatron is capable of reopening the gates of heaven, I have no faith in his ability to govern.  Nor do I believe that he will keep his word.  As an unforgiven outsider, I am aware that my position is precarious at best; I suspect that Metatron has little interest in keeping me as a trusted guard at the gates of his throne room.  My fate at his hands will likely be a reprise of the lifetime I have suffered in darkness.”  
  
Adeophale sees the logic in this response and does not see reason to doubt the earnest angel beside him.   He nods slowly, his gaze fixed on the valley between the mountains.  He states thoughtfully, “So you seek an audience with Abaddon.”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“What do you have to offer her?” he asks curiously.  
  
“My loyal service… and a vessel that is worthy of the Queen of Hell.”  
  
The warrior glances over at the other angel, a mere gatekeeper, and raises his eyebrows slightly.  His eyes skim over the body of the Righteous Man, envious again as he considers the power that those limbs were designed to contain.  Dean Winchester was the chariot for an archangel, not some pittance that should be bartered away to a knight of hell.  
  
“You would surrender Michael’s Sword so easily?”  
  
“It is not an easy sacrifice,” Gadreel replies, “This vessel represents many things to me.  However, I am aware of my position and my own lack of both allies and resources.”  
  
Adeophale nods, turning away from him sharply, “I shall take your offer to her and bring her response.”  
  
The other angel bows gracefully from the waist, keeping his eyes on his brother’s face.  
  
When Adeophale has vanished from his sight, Gadreel sits down slowly in the snow and wraps his wings about his mortal vessel like a cloak.  As he watches the valley below, a garden of green between the snowy peaks, he wonders how simply touching Sam’s soul could have led to his second fall.    
  
None of this is being done for the angels or for his own absolution, not really.  He chooses to stand against Metatron because he told Sam that he would, and his word to the younger Winchester, a being whose entire life spans less than a single angelic heartbeat, means more than any heavenly reward.  He will take his beloved’s mortal years; he will guard him even if he chooses to hate him for everything that he has done and will do.  
  
Sam forgave him for the garden.  He was the first.  
  
That is why doesn’t need for this love to be reciprocated; he never has.  His father’s indifference hadn’t quelled his adoration or his faith, and by comparison Sam’s mortal rejection could only be the slightest pinprick to his immortal heart.  
  
He feels the presence of demons behind him without even turning his head.  Looking calmly at the lights and life below for just a moment longer, he finally rises to his feet and turns.  
  
Tucking his wings back into a fold in reality, he bows deeply to the redheaded Queen of Hell.  She is outwardly beautiful, but he can see the smoldering blackness and the long, sharp teeth and claws within her; he can see everything ugly that she has ever done and every cruelty that she has ever performed and he knows that it should terrify him.  
  
“Hello, Gadreel,” she says, smiling charmingly, “It’s always a pleasure to meet another pretty face.”  
  
She walks closer and drags her fingertip down over his cheek, Dean Winchester’s cheek, and then does a hip-swaying loop about him as she looks him over.  Laughing, she gives his backside a thoughtful squeeze, then a controlled but gleeful swat.  Gadreel does not react, which disappoints her slightly; it would have been so much more fun if it had been Dean Winchester in that meat suit.  
  
“Greetings, Abaddon, Queen of Hell,” he says methodically, reverently, as he places his hand over his vessel’s heart.    
  
“So, you are really willing to bargain with me using Dean Winchester’s meat suit?  This is a hot piece of merchandise… I would love to know how you go your hands on it to begin with.  Your higher-ups couldn’t even get this kid to say yes to Michael, from what I’ve heard.”  
  
“It’s a convoluted story, but one that I would enjoy telling you another time,” Gadreel tells her modestly, nodding.    
  
She smiles, pleased, and comes around to stand before him.  She looks him over thoughtfully, first inspecting the vessel and then looking at what she is able to perceive of the glistening creature within.  He is unsettled by her, but not frightened, and looks back evenly.  
  
“You’re fearless.  I like that,” Abaddon comments, “Not a soldier, unfortunately, but you are not without redeeming qualities.”  
  
Gadreel laughs quietly, nodding at the praise.  He counts six other demons in her entourage, all reasonably powerful.  He knows that between those demons and the massive, powerful angel who had acted as errand boy, he would stand no chance alone in a fight.  
  
“Will you accept me into your ranks?” he asks, inclining his chin slightly, “I am more than willing to fight on your behalf in exchange for a favored position in your new order and a few small concessions”  
  
"Possibly, but first I would like to know why you're abandoning your current position with Metatron.  Gadreel is somewhat of a famous angel; I know I remember you.  That you would contact me now, especially when you have a shot at a cushy post in heaven, is very, very curious."  
  
"Metatron has recently threatened and mocked me; I am no stranger to betrayal, and I do not trust him.  I am aware that demons always honor their bargains, and for that certainty I would give my allegiance."  
  
She meets his eyes with unhidden curiosity, “What concessions are you requesting from me?”  
  
“Protection for Sam Winchester,” he says evenly, “I owe him my life for sheltering me after the fall, and it is indirectly through his actions that I find myself so comfortably situated in his brother’s body.”  
  
“Curious, but not unreasonable.  Anything else?”  
  
Gadreel nods, “When I abandon this vessel for your use, I want for you to kill Dean Winchester and release his soul to heaven prior to taking control of his body.”  
  
She frowns slightly at that, “Having an unwilling, kicking, screaming Winchester riding around with me would have been one of the perks of taking that beautiful body.  It isn’t just that it was built for an archangel, pretty bird, it is that the current occupant has been a pain in my ass since he crossed my path.  I would really rather that he suffer.”  
  
“Be that as it may, these are my conditions.  Protection for Sam Winchester and release for Dean Winchester’s soul.  If you cannot agree to these simple requests, then I cannot in good conscience place myself into your service.”  
  
“Huh,” Abaddon laughs, “A traitor with a moral hard limit.  Very quaint.  But all right.  If these are your terms, I will accept them.  In exchange, you will remove the demon warding on that vessel and surrender it for my use, then enlist yourself permanently in my faithful service.  Is this amenable to you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Good,” she says, lifting her hand and letting a long contract unfurl.  
  
The angel accepts it from her and skims rapidly over its contents, shivering at the expectations for an angel in Hell’s service.  The terms of the agreement are very clear and masterfully written with not a single loophole for either side; Abaddon doesn’t like contracts, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t excel at their construction.  Likewise, she knows better than to try to outsmart an angel; even the slowest angel is still a creature whose mind exists on a dozen wavelengths of light.  They would certainly notice an unacceptable omission or addition, and petulant wrath is not something that any demon, even a knight of Hell, is willing to toy with.    
  
Gadreel reaches over to take a pen from her as well, and in the moment that their fingertips touch, he catches onto her hand.    
  
His eyes blazing blue, he jerks her forward, dropping the contract and drawing his sword.  He could have killed her then, but her death isn’t what he needs.  Instead, with a clean sweep of his blade, he severs her right hand just below the wrist.  
  
She screams in rage and pain, burned by his blade right through to her demonic form.  He has taken not only a piece of her vessel, but of her immortal body.     
  
He jerks back quickly and finds himself back to back with his angelic ally.  Castiel, winded and wounded, has his sword drawn against Abaddon’s advancing demons and the mountainous angel sheathed in the petite blond body.  
  
The smaller angel moves with brutal efficiency; even though Gadreel has the advantage of strength and age, his brother has seen battle.  He moves with an inhuman elegance, commanding his limbs with the grace of the finest martial artist;  the blade of his sword cuts through the air with a high, singing whistle, burning white with the strength of his conviction and the force of his movements.  Gadreel is stunned by the awesome power of the dying angel as he cuts through the demons without the slightest hesitation, diving in to striking range with a flagrant disregard for his own safety.  
  
Part of him wants to argue that it is because Castiel knows that his life is at an end; however, watching him out of the corner of his eye, he realizes that this fearlessness is built directly into his very style of fighting, his every movement brings him within an inch of death.  
  
They face Adeophale together.  While they are all housed in vessels of reasonably comparable size, the true battle happens on multiple planes.  Adeophale’s physical form is thousands of feet tall, dwarfing both of the other two; Castiel is nothing to his sheer size, and in terms of battle experience, the dying angel is young.  Adeophale, veteran of nearly every battle ever waged on earth, the angel of broadswords and orphans of war, moves with a kind of confidence that neither of his adversaries could ever hope to command.  
  
Nonetheless, both dodge and weave, avoiding the skillful, gleaming arcs of his sword.  The blade catches both, but not fatally, just glancing, superficial cuts along their wings and arms.  Nothing that causes the blaze of severed grace.  
  
When Gadreel stumbles, Castiel drags him to his feet as he would any brother in arms.  He has not forgiven him, nor can he love him, but they are united now in a common battle.  There is simply no time for anything personal.  
  
When Castiel’s strength falters, his abused wings finally failing to hold him aloft, Gadreel eases him to the ground.  With his feet firmly set upon the earth, Castiel faces off against his enormous adversary, begging even then in Enochian _Stop, brother.  We don’t need to fight each other.  Please, stop._  
  
There is no pity in Adeophale, who honors his every bond.  He has made a promise to Abaddon, and he will strike down every angel who would question his loyalty.  He brings his sword down in a terminal sweep with force enough to cleave the mountain in half.  
  
Castiel raises his own blade, one that is forged from stolen grace and imbued with every fiber of his devotion, every word he has ever spoken and every promise that he has ever made.  The two swords meet in a clap of thunder and Adeophale’s yields, shattering against the force of the smaller angels’ will.  
  
Before Adeophale has even realized what has happened, that he is now vulnerable and unarmed against his opponents, Gadreel sinks his own sword deeply into his vessel’s chest.  
  
With a flare of blue light, the demon's angel is dead.  
  
In the aftermath of the battle, Gadreel looks around in stunned silence.  Abaddon is nowhere to be found, and Castiel is limp and cold in the snow.

 

\--------------------------

 

The sound of the archangels wings snapping closed when he lands reminds Kevin of the thundering crack of a branch breaking under the weight of a Michigan ice storm.  It is a powerful sound, echoing and strangely fierce in contrast to the frumpy, unimposing frame that houses Metatron.  
  
Looking at him, Kevin sees strange traces of his true form as bits of light and fire.  He is suddenly unbalanced by a thoroughly distracting surge of pure terror as he realizes that he has never been so ill-prepared or alone in his life.  Compared to the nearly eternal creature who is prowling the foot path, he is laughably young and inexperienced.  He closes his eyes and tries to visualize what will happen, wishing for his own dubious eloquence to magically forge itself into some sort of English language excalibur to combat Metatron’s blade.    
  
“You may as well come out,” Metatron tells him, his voice condescending, “I know you’re here.”  
  
Kevin steps forward onto the paved path, lifting his chin and trying to adopt a tough, Dean-like pose of indifference.  Being smaller, slimmer, and markedly less confident, it falls short.  Even so, thinking of his friend makes him feel stronger.  
  
“Yeah, I’m here.”  
  
Metatron turns toward him, laughing in bright surprise, “Well, if it isn’t Kevin Tran!”  
  
“I figured that you wanted me here…?” he replies, trying to match Metatron’s blasé tone with only partial success, “I mean, the whole angel smiting thing seemed like a pretty fancy invitation, right?”  
  
The archangel smirks at him, “Like most humans, you overestimate your own importance.  I didn’t want you here, Kevin, I just wanted you dead.”  
  
He laughs dismissively as though it was a mistake that anyone could have made.  
  
Kevin’s skin prickles.  He hadn’t exactly enjoyed being sequestered at the Men of Letters’ bunker, but he’d always thought of it as temporary; there would be an end to the tablets and the demons and the caffeine pills.  And after that, there’d be time for colleges and girls, maybe even a bit of hunting or freelance research if he felt like he missed it.  It had been his life and there had been a lot left of it;  he resented having it taken away on what seemed to be someone’s whim.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“You were getting a bit too important.  You were a good translator and I appreciate that, I really do.  Language is so important, really.  But when you started concocting spells and designing sigils for the Winchesters, well.  That was a little much.  That was starting to be an inconvenience.”  
  
Kevin’s anger spikes upward at the word.   He had died, rather grotesquely, because he was an _inconvenience._   He met Metatron’s eyes, hating his round-chinned, piggy little face and his oily, intellectual voice.  He reminded him of a dowdy, angelic Crowley without the snappy sense of humor.  
  
“My most sincere apologies,” he says snottily, giving him his best Sam Winchester bitch face.  
  
“There’s no need to be upset,” Metatron says, “ _But_ I am going to have to ask you to leave.”  
  
“You’re gonna have to _make_ me leave.”  
  
Metatron sighs as though this is all a great bore for him.  He pulls out his archangel blade, which Kevin has never actually seen before, and regards at it almost lazily, “Kevin, please.  I have no desire to get blood all over my throne room.”  
  
“No.”  
  
The archangel is quick and savage; Kevin doesn’t even see him move.  But almost instantly, he is right in front of him, pressed almost against his front, and his blade is buried in Kevin’s abdomen.  It goes clean through and protrudes gruesomely from his lower back.  
  
Kevin makes a stunned sound of pain, slumping forward against the angel.  
  
Metatron gives the blade a nasty torque, smiling as the human’s body jerks and twists against him.  With his chin just above Kevin’s shoulder and his mouth against his ear, he murmurs,  “I think wearing an unmarried opthamologist from Oklahoma City might be a little bit misleading.  I am flesh made flame, and I am not to be trifled with.”  
  
The prophet closes his eyes, focusing hard and trying to remind himself that he has no physical body and cannot be made to feel pain.  He remembers other aromas and sensations in heaven and how he could tune them out or replace them with others.  With visible effort, he wraps his hands around Metatron’s and holds the blade steady as he shifts his body back and off of its glimmering length.  There is no blood and no wound, only the smooth, unmarred front of his t-shirt.  
  
Trying to summon every bit of courage he’d ever pretended to have, Kevin meets the archangel’s eyes boldly.  _Fake it till you make it._ He smiles slowly, darkly, though he feels his jaw tremble.  He reminds himself about the importance of wording, trying to think of the kind of words that would win a metaphysical debate.  
  
“I _challenge_ you, Metatron.”  
  
It sounds a little bit like campy scifi/fantasy to his taste, but it seems to do the job.  The archangel tilts his head to the side, surprised and unexpectedly pleased.  It has been a long time since he’s engaged in a good conversation, much less a battle of words and wit.  While he has little faith in a human prophet’s ability to reason, he admires his fire; his willingness already made him a more worthy opponent than half of what passes for angels these days.  
  
With a laugh, he sheathes his unbloodied sword and smiles broadly, “I accept.  What is your resolution?”  
  
Kevin reels again as he realizes that he is just not ready for this.  
  
“You aren’t worthy of being the new God.”  
  
“That’s hardly worth arguing, Kevin; I don’t _want_ to be the new God.”  
  
“Semantics,” he counters quickly, trying to sound as academic as possible, “For the sake of argument, god with a small ‘g.’  You are claiming mastery of his domain, which implies that you feel that you have the… ability to fulfill the same, ah, role and functions as the previous er, ruling deity.”  
  
Metatron nods, pleased with the clarification.    
  
“I assert my ability to fulfill the role differently, but serve the same function with better results.  I am certainly worthy.”  
  
“Cross-examination,” Kevin muses to himself, crossing his arms thoughtfully and pacing several steps, “Do you have abilities similar to those of God, capital ‘g’?”  
  
“On a lesser scale.”  
  
“Qualify that.”  
  
“I can alter matter through the power of thought, I can bring objects into existence by simply wishing to do so.”  
  
“So you can create life?”  
  
Like most archangels, Metatron can restore life to something that had died.  He can even pull together the molecules of something that had thoroughly decomposed and reanimate it.  However, he is unable to create the animating force from scratch; he cannot create a soul, or even a personality, even if he were to have the gall to attempt to craft a new body.  The spark can be rekindled, but not spontaneously created.  
  
Still, he is unwilling to lose points so early in the flight, and he knows he can make arguments on technicalities.  
  
“I can use this vessel to procreate,” he responds carefully.  Of course, angels cannot beget other angels so the offspring would be nephilim.  However, in the most technical sense, he could create life.  
  
“I could do that too, though,” Kevin points out, trying to think of how to construct his argument.  “But I couldn’t do it alone… and neither could you, I’m guessing?  Like, you have half the power of creation there. And as a creator on the level of the previous God, you should be able to create an entire world and bunch of different things to live on it.  Right?  Can you do that?”  
  
It’s a good argument and the slight twinge that runs through the archangel makes Kevin feel a small surge of hope.  However, Metatron chooses a different method of attack.  
  
“I think that you have some confusion about the present role of God,” Metatron replies.  They both silently count Kevin’s point as Metatron drops Kevin’s argument in favor of another, “God has not created anything new in quite some time.  In fact, if we are looking purely at the here and now, God’s position could probably be comfortably occupied by a potted plant for all of his involvement.”  
  
Kevin raises an eyebrow challengingly, “So what you’re saying is that _anyone_ could be God.”  
  
“I am saying that there are no special skills required to do what God has been doing for the last two thousand years, and I therefore do not need to qualify abilities that appear to have been out of vogue for quite some time.”  
  
“So what _does_ qualify you to take over, as opposed to anyone else?”  
  
“I am the only other being in creation who knows the details and the rules of the current design.  Despite that I cannot draft a new design, I alone am able to maintain the structure and govern all of the old God’s creations… I could even restore order to the areas that have fallen into disrepair from his neglect.”  
  
Over the past two years, Kevin has been catching the idea that a lot of angels have serious abandonment issues; it seemed as though it ranks among the top reasons for angelic tantrums and world-ending limit testing.   There is an obvious resentment in this particular angel with regard to God’s apparently inactivity, but he doesn’t know why.  Metatron, for all of his logic, seems to take the Almighty’s little sabbatical extremely personally.  
  
“Okay, so, God hasn’t been taking care of things, okay.  Ah, on that topic, how long has it been since God was really paying attention to what was going on?”  
  
“A few thousand years.”  
  
“And that is, what, compared to the amount of time that the universe has been in existence?”  
  
Metatron’s eyebrows flick up, “A very slim percentage.”  
  
“So, because God has taken a little breather, you think it’s time for him to be replaced?”  
  
“You were what, 19 when I had you killed?” the archangel asks, frowning, “So that means you were probably born in 1994, approximately.  So your perception of time is a bit narrower than mine.  Let me try to think of a way to explain this to you.”  
  
He really is being very generous.  Another angel being so obtuse would have been eviscerated in no time.  However, Metatron is interested in this discussion and, more importantly, he enjoys hearing himself talk when he knows more than whoever he’s talking to.  
  
“I need you to imagine a timeline that stretches from creation to the present.  For the sake of argument, we’re only going to map items of human or angelic interest.  All right, at the beginning of the line, we have the creation of the universe. We’ll put a little light on there.  Blip!” he makes an explosive little gesture with his right hand,”After that, creation of angels.  Blip!  And then there’s a big span of time where not a lot happens that really seems of interest to much of anyone.  Then we get to the creation of man. Blip.  Rebellion of Lucifer.  Blip.  Expulsion from the garden.  Blip.  Human death!  Blip!  Organization of heaven and creation of Hell.  Blip, blip!”  
  
He smirks slightly, “Then our timeline’s going along and there’s a lot of time where not much is happening, but God is still fairly invested.  Some wrongdoing, floods, Old Testament.  All of these are occasional little flashes on our sparkly little timeline.  We get a few ancient wars, we get Jesus, we get Christianity, we get the fall of Rome, we get the division of the church, we get the Crusades, we get the Renaissance, we get a slew of wars, we get the degradation of man, we get the atom bomb.  Where there were once only occasional flashes on our timeline, they are happening more and more, closer and closer together.  Brighter and brighter.  23,000 killed in the battle of Gettysburg, 66,000 in Hiroshima from one bomb blast, 11 million in the Holocaust. And man is so curious and so capable, but so deeply flawed that he presses on - constantly - faster and faster, bigger and bigger.  The number of times that God should have paid attention has increased exponentially.  The world is literally screaming for his attention, but his input has remained a consistent nothing.”  
  
He pauses, regrouping for a moment, “Is that too intangible?  Think of your own lifetime.  You were born with Playstation and Java.  The year you were born, there were 10,000 websites.  By the time you died, there were 180 million.  You saw the death of the modem, the birth of wifi, the creation of the smart phone.  A hundred years ago, there may have been one technological advance of great importance every 10 years.  Now, technology becomes obsolete before its even sold out of the store windows.  You saw modern medicine snuff out several pandemics that would have nearly ended civilization even a hundred years ago.  Just since you were born, your country alone has been involved in a dozen military conflicts.  Think of it.”  
  
There are a lot of questions, and Kevin can almost visualize them as the forward thrusts of a sword, the dancing choreography of a well-acted fight scene.  He absorbs the key points of Metatron’s argument and attempts to distill it into a more useable form.  
  
“So, because of the… increasing importance of the years that God has missed, you feel that the almost infinitely long span of time before is not valuable.”  
  
“Not valuable? No, creation and early foundations are important. The point is that mankind has brought the universe into a downward spiral that was intended to be remedied by the Apocalypse.  However, that did not go as planned, and we are all limping on, directionless, because nothing’s been written after that.  Heaven is in disarray, Hell is spilling over onto earth, Purgatory is being used as a park and ride between realms, and God refuses to step up to set things to order.”  
  
“So you will,” Kevin asks, half as a question and half as a statement.  
  
“Yes,” Metatron replies boldly, “I’ve already started.  I’m organizing heaven’s new hierarchy, and from there, we can dispense order - and Apocalypse, if necessary.”  
  
“From where I’m sitting, heaven’s literally falling apart.”  
  
“You’re short-sighted.”  
  
“Really,” Kevin asks, quirking an eyebrow, “Because it seems like it’s pretty poorly planned.  I mean, maybe you didn’t notice since you’ve been doing - I dunno, whatever you’ve been doing - but your garden is being freaking _swarmed_ with confused souls.  There are thousands of people outside waiting for you, waiting for _God_ to fix their heaven, and more and more are coming.”  
  
“Well, maybe _God_ should fix it then,” Metatron says, surprisingly petulantly, “All it would take would be a wave of his hand to reopen the pearly gates and get a few thousand shepherds guiding his flock back to their places.”  
  
“What are you going to do as his replacement?”  
  
Metatron lifts his hand and says, “If he really and truly won’t step in… I will reopen heaven and allow in the angels whom I have chosen.”  
  
Out of nowhere, he pulls out something unpleasant and fleshy, a bloodless hand, and a small, glowing vial.  
  
“It’s not a complex spell if you know what you’re doing.  A siren’s tongue is easy enough to come by… and the next ingredient even easier - the right hand that swore an oath to the fallen.  Prior to the whole expulsion thing, you’ve have had to get someone who’d sworn an oath to Lucifer.  However, almost all angels are technically considered fallen right now, so anyone who’s sworn allegiance to Malachi or Bartholomew will suffice.  The most difficult, the only one of a kind ingredient, is the grace of the angel who gave everything for his family to close the gates.”  
  
Kevin realizes that he’s looking at Castiel’s grace and is momentarily fascinated, just as he was repulsed by the dismembered body parts.  He looks back up to Metatron.  
  
“So you have the power to set the balance of heaven to rights, just like God.  All right.  But will you, that’s the question.”  
  
“Will God?” Metatron challenges, “He sees what I see… in theory, even more.  But he hasn’t moved.  He hasn’t touched anything.”  
  
“You don’t know what God’s touched,” Kevin points out, “Just because God hasn’t just magically flipped a switch and made everything right doesn’t mean that he hasn’t done anything.”  
  
The human has a strange moment as he says that aloud.  He thinks of all of the times that he’s prayed to God, often without even believing, asking for a quick fix to a problem.  Please let me get a good grade on this test, please let me be accepted to this program, please save me, please save my mom, please let me save the world, please give me some sign.  There was never a flash of lightning that burned an A+ into the top of a paper, nor was there ever any sign of anything other than life progressing as normal.  But he did get good grades, arguably through the intelligence and work ethic that God had given him, and with or without heavenly billboards, he had made the choices that shaped his life.  He isn’t a spiritual person, and even standing in the Lord’s garden and arguing with an archangel, he still isn’t entirely too sold on the whole existence of God thing; all the same, he feels slightly galvanized.  
  
Metatron, however, seems angry with that answer, “I _know_ God.  Unlike you, I’ve met him.  I sat and listened to him talk for hours and days and years.  I know what it’s like to be in his presence.  God ain’t here, Kev, God don’t care.”  
  
“So are you testing him?”  Kevin asks, “Trying to force his hand, figuring that negative attention is better than no attention like you’re some spoiled little kid?”  
  
“I am no child,” Metatron says angrily, seeing to crackle slightly.  For a moment, Kevin realizes that he can almost see the blazing outline of the angel’s true form,  He knows that the only reason why his eyes aren’t burned out by the sight is because he has no eyes to burn out, no body to incinerate.  The vision fades, though, and the angel seems to again be just a nerdy, heavyset man with curly hair and an angry set to his eyebrows, “I was his new favorite, his most trusted.  I began as one of his favorite creatures and he raised me up, transformed me into this, took my name and gave me a new one befitting my place at his side.”  
  
Kevin remembers suddenly that in one version of the bible, Metatron was once a man.  With that in mind, he understands Metatron’s tight focus on God’s neglect of humanity during its weakest moments.  The span of time during which man existed was the most important to him because he was a deceptively young angel and had not seen creation as his new brothers had.    
  
He read human books and absorbed thousands of human stories not because he was the Scribe of God, but because he had once been a man.  
  
Staring slightly, Kevin lifts his hands defensively, “So… you’re able to do this spell.  Like God, okay.  You can reopen heaven.  Back to my question.  Will you?  _Will_ you do what God won’t?  That is what would make you better.  You said you’ll be better.”  
  
“I know you’re trying to trick me into reversing the spell because you want to see it done,” Metatron says with a short laugh, “I’m not an idiot.”  
  
“Will you do it, though?  How can you prove you’re a better god than God if you refuse to do what needs to be done?” he persists.  “If you were human, then you know what heaven was supposed to be.  That’s not it.  You have angel brothers on earth who are suffering, and human brothers in heaven who are fading away, suffering, because you won’t help them.”  
  
Metatron’s body is stiff and he looks as though there is some serious divine wrath waiting to rain down from the heavens.  In fact, a stiff wind has picked up in the garden, tossing about the butterflies and sending a sprinkling of moisture down from where it had been collecting on the leaves overhead.  
  
Kevin is genuinely terrified, immortal human soul or not.  
  
“You asserted that you are better than God, that you’re worthy of his place.  To prove it, you’ve got to show me that you can and will do what God won’t.”  
  
Metatron’s eyes flash, and the components that he had shown Kevin before glimmer into existence in the bowl of one of the conservatory’s fountains.  He turns to them and begins chanting in Enochian, and Kevin can dimly translate the words’ meaning, though he knows that his understanding is imprecise; his knowledge of Enochian is enough to know that it is not intended for human comprehension.  
  
The spell seems to be working; there is a harsh rumble of thunder as jagged tongues of lightning flash above the glass ceiling of the observatory.  Metatron won’t lose this battle, nor will he allow himself to believe that he is not worthy of taking his father’s place.  It has become about more than just beating a human prophet; this is his identity on the line.  
  
And perhaps that pride is part of why he could have never succeeded.  Just as abruptly as it began, the heavenly overture quiets.  The spell components, untransformed, sit in the fountain.  
  
“I... don’t understand,” Metatron breathes.  He looks up at the sky, then around the garden as though there would be someone else there, more than just him and Kevin.  He wants to see God.  
  
But it is just the two of them and a lot of butterflies that don’t actually exist, in a room that isn’t real.  God has not come, and he has not proven himself worthy of taking his place.  The sense of loss and hopelessness overwhelms him as he looks silently at the quiet, gently glowing human soul opposite him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the idea of angelic battle being a battle of words. I mean, normally these guys don't have bodies, so they really would be fighting with words and concepts. So Kevin taking on Metatron in debate is serious stuff, since those words can actually hurt him. I had a really hard time writing that section, so I hope it reads clearly. :)


	13. Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Cas's last night on earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter bumps this one up to a mature/explicit rating. If you don't like sex scenes, you can skip this chapter - there is important plot stuff too, but I will summarize that in the notes section of the next chapter.

  
_My candle burns at both ends;_  
 _It will not last the night;_  
 _But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—_  
 _It gives a lovely light!_

_\- Edna St. Vincent Millais_  


  
  
Gadreel carries his brother home. The blood speckling Castiel’s vessel doesn’t scare him as much as the fact that the heat that he has radiated for days has gone cold.  The smaller angel’s body is hovering just below a human’s natural temperature now and his skin has gone slightly white; Gadreel can literally feel his fire burning out.  
  
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Castiel tells him listlessly, letting his head loll against the crook of Gadreel’s shoulder as the angel carries him.   He watches his face for a moment, but his preternaturally focused expression isn’t what he wants to see.  Closing his eyes, he allows himself to imagine Dean’s soul lighting that face, his brow furrowed in annoyance as he grumbles that he could stand to lose a little weight.  He exhales slowly, tiredly, “Gadreel, let me see Dean before I die.”  
  
Gadreel pauses in the vestibule of the bunker, the words sending a shiver of sorrow through him.  His chest is tight, and he realizes suddenly that it is because his human heart aches.  It’s a curious sensation, having a vessel, particularly when he sometimes feels that some sensations may not be due to his own actions.  
  
“That isn’t-”  
  
“Please,” he says lowly, opening his clear blue eyes.  There is no question in his voice, only tacit expectation.  
  
Gadreel’s expression is strangely open as he looks at his brother, the first angel to have fought beside him since his fall.  Castiel was a damaged creature himself but he would have helped him to redeem himself completely, if only he had the time.  He lifts his hand to smooth the younger angel’s hair apologetically, and there is a strange degree of tenderness in the gesture.  It is something like love, even in what seems to be denial.  
  
“I will forgive you everything if you just let me spend my last hours with him,” Castiel pleads quietly, the need in his voice practically human in its intensity.    
  
Gadreel has sought forgiveness since his fall, and he has sought love since he first witnessed Adam and Eve in the garden.  All of these ideas have come together in Castiel’s simple request and he cannot deny him.  
  
Suddenly deprived of angelic strength, Dean stumbles under the weight of his lover’s limp form.  He is disoriented, but he knows enough to hold on to the cool body in his arms and stay on his feet.  Slumping slightly against the doorframe for support, he shifts the angel against his chest and demands, panicked, “Cas?”  
  
The angel feels a surge of joy at the simple sound of his name spoken in his lover’s gruff, demanding voice.  No one has ever said his name the way that Dean does; strangely, no one had ever even called him by the nickname before Dean had.  
  
“Hello, Dean.”  
  
Dean looks around the bunker in confusion, then down at the angel that he carries.  Uncertain, cloudy pieces of memory attempt to fit themselves together. Abaddon’s bloody, severed hand.  _The hand that swore the oath to the fallen._ Castiel and Gadreel fighting another angel.  It didn’t look the way that he remembered angelic fisticuffs looking; it was bigger and it seemed to be happening in several places at once.  It was too big and not tangible enough; his mind couldn’t couldn’t fit it together into an image that made sense.    
  
What he did know was that his angel had won, but that there had been a heavy cost for his exertion.  
  
“Cas…” he breathes, “Com’mon, let’s get you comfortable, maybe get you a drink of water, some holy something or other to pep you up… hey, Cas, stay with me, man...”  
  
He carries him awkwardly to his bedroom and gently sets the angel down on the bed.   Castiel is subdued as he always is, moving only when necessary as he always has, but somehow his calm, steady stillness scares Dean now.  He licks his dry lips and says, trying to sound calm, “What can I get you, Cas?  What do you need?”  
  
“Just you,” Castiel replies mildly, knowing that it is exactly the sort of soppy response that Dean doesn’t want to hear.  There is more reason than romance in the words, though by now he knows better than to explain that.  There is nothing else that Dean can give him.  
  
“No, seriously…” Dean says quietly, desperately, “Tell me what to do.”  
  
“Dean, there’s nothing to do.  Just lie here with me.”  
  
It goes against everything that he is to stop fighting, but as he looks at his lover he recognizes the truth in his words.  He swallows hard, then agitatedly pulls off Castiel’s coat and tie to try to make him more comfortable.  He undoes the top button of his dusty shirt, then just looks at him for a long moment.  
  
“I just…”  
  
Cas reaches for his hand and holds it briefly, “I’m not in any pain now, Dean.  I’m just tired.  Lie down with me.”  
  
The hunter sighs heavily, then toes off his boots and settles beside him on the bed.  For the first time in their years together, there is no pretense as he pulls the angel up against him, nearly crushing the air out of his lungs as he tries to bring them as close together as physically possible.  He presses his lips to Castiel’s brow, then the hollow below his cheekbone, then his lips.  
  
“I’m not ready for this.”  
  
“I know,” Cas tells him, lifting his hand to lightly rub his thumb across the short hair at the nape of his lover’s neck.  He is comfortable in Dean’s arms, even as he feels his lover shaking, “But this is better.”  
  
“It really isn’t,” Dean disagrees, letting the tip of his nose rest against’s Cas’s.  They share breath for a moment in silence as he tries to find the words to say what he knows he needs to say.  
  
“It is,” the angels supplies almost lazily, “Before, you would have left me without even saying goodbye-”  
  
“I texted-”  
  
“Coordinates,” Cas finishes for him, not giving him an inch.  He tilts his chin up to press his full mouth to the hunter’s.  He sucks lightly on his lower lip, then traces the tip of his tongue over the crease between his lips before opening his mouth to kiss him more deeply.  
  
The kiss surprises Dean in that it is intimate but not sexual; there is a sensuality to it that he still hasn’t learned to expect from his lover, even after all this time.  He is satisfied with only this, content to simply hold Castiel as he slowly, lingeringly slides his tongue against his.  
  
When he pulls back, he stays close.  Still face to face, his voice even and quiet and his breath warm on Dean’s lips, he says firmly, “This _is_ better”  
  
“There’s no ‘better,’ Cas.  This is shit,” Dean breathes, his eyes closed tightly.  
  
“Yeah,” the angel agrees after a moment’s pause.  
  
Dean laughs shortly at that, painfully, surprised by his easy agreement.  He kisses him quickly, his hand moving to rest against his lover’s rough cheek.  He draws in a breath and holds it until it burns, then swallows it a moment longer before releasing it.  
  
“Breathe.”  
  
When he opened his eyes, convinced that he has some semblance of control over his emotions, he is surprised to find Cas is watching him.    
  
“If you need to cry, Dean, you should do it now while I am here to comfort you.”  
  
“I can’t… I can’t cry over you before you’re dead,” he says, his throat so tight that it is hard to speak.  He clears his throat and says quietly, “If this is it… if this’s all we’re gonna have, I mean…”  
  
It’s a messy kiss, made ugly by an anguished twist of Dean’s mouth.   He’s crying but trying not to, trying to keep a sob tuned down to a fine, full-body trembling.  He tries to start over, to kiss Castiel again the way he feels a last kiss should be, but has to break away to draw a shuddering breath.    
  
“God, Cas…” he chokes finally, pressing his brow against his, “I can’t do this.  I just…”  
  
He swallows hard and holds his breath again to keep himself from crying.  He can feel that his mouth is doing that thing again, that thing where his lips press so hard that they almost turn white where they meet, and he can feel that his nose is scrunched and his brow is drawn with the effort of keeping tears from creeping through his eyelashes.  He knows that his face is a mask of weakness, and that he looks exactly the way that he doesn’t want Cas to see him.  
  
Cas, for his part, doesn’t know what to say.  Angels don’t comfort, not really.  
  
He nudges the tip of his nose against Dean’s, then presses forward to kiss him affectionately.  He doesn’t cry and never has, though he feels his own heart aching in his chest.  With only the last embers of grace smoldering within him, he is almost human, nearly dead, and he can hear his blood rushing in his ears and his breathing becoming uneven.  
  
“I’m happy here with you now, Dean,” he says finally.  
  
He kisses him again, as though fervent affection would make his lover believe him.  He knows Dean and he knows that his lover communicates more readily through physicality than words.  Dean’s fingers in the back of his shirt  tighten as he drags him close again, opening his mouth into the kiss almost desperately.    
  
He kisses Cas as he’s never kissed anyone, cradling his head in his hand as he shifts closer to him.  There is a natural give and take to their movements, yielding and claiming in turn, as though they are having a conversation without words.    
  
Dean remembers lying in bed with the him after the first awkward time that they had sex, staring at the motel ceiling in the dark and wondering what the next day would bring.  How he’d ever be able to look the awkward angel in the face.  He’d said never again, but it had still happened.  Again and again, until they were desperately stealing kisses whenever Sam left the room.  They had gotten together and fallen apart a dozen times, one of them always left burned by the other’s lies.  But they wandered back anyway, every time, unable to deny themselves or each other.  And one night, wrapped around each other in the back of the Impala, Castiel had made the strange comment that _loving him was like falling down stairs_.  
  
He still doesn’t quite know what it means but the words play over in his head now.  _Like falling down stairs._  
  
There is a certain momentum, a movement that urges them both forward as their hands slide over the familiar angles of hips, ribs, and shoulders.  Castiel’s mouth finds the pulse point below his ear, Dean’s hands grip the sharp wings of his hip bones and pull him hard against him.  Motivated by need, they press as close together as they can as a means of simply not letting go.  Dean is on top of him, his weight pressing Cas’ thighs apart as the angel arches up against him, hugging his waist with his thighs.  
  
 _I should just be able to hold you,_ Dean thinks as he kisses his lover hungrily, needing the press of his body against his own, _I should just be able to lie here beside you._  
  
He kisses all over his face, making Castiel laugh quietly in genuine amusement as he brushes him off.  His strong fingers glide easily over Dean’s cheek and slip through his hair, then tighten as he holds him in place while he leans up to claim a deep, open-mouthed kiss that leaves Dean breathless.  
  
This is what makes it real for Dean.  The rise and fall of Castiel’s chest under his fingers as he pulls off his shirt, the warm press of his open mouth against his trapezius as the angel calls his attention back from his explorations.  This could be any night, except that Cas’s body is cool against his where he would normally run hot, and his own eyes still burn from the tears he hasn’t allowed himself to cry.  
  
“Cas,” he breathes, half a sob, “Cas…”  
  
The angel’s mouth is on his again, quieting him and forgiving him.  Their bare legs are tangled together, and his hands are in Castiel’s short, mussed hair.  There is desperation growing between them, amplified by every soft sound that Cas gives him and echoed in Dean’s soft, barely intelligible words of encouragement.    
  
He wants to stop, wants to just hold Cas against him and tell him all of the things that that should come easily.  The things that other guys said, shit that most people just made up on the fly and threw out there without any consequence.  He knows that Cas wants to hear it, but all he can give him is his mouth on his and his fingers in his hair.    
  
“Cas…”  
  
“Don’t,” he scolds quietly, “Just be with me.”  
  
The unspoken _I love you_ is there, and even without voice it scares Dean.  He has never been able to comprehend the magnitude of being loved by an angel; he has never been able to trust being loved by anyone.  He presses Castiel into the mattress with the new urgency of his kisses brought on by Castiel’s permission, his hands dragging down the familiar lines of his hips and thighs before looping up to curl about their cocks and stroke them slowly against one another.  
  
Castiel moans quietly as he rocks his hips upwards so that the head of his prick bumps and skims against Dean’s.  He moves with him in the same smooth give and take as before, the same rhythm that seems to accompany everything from the cadence of their steps as they walk side by side to beat of Dean’s heart to the catch of their quickened breathing when they make love.  
  
They grind against one another eagerly, listening to each other’s rough breaths and stealing kisses when overcome by temptation.  Castiel has always thought he could taste the sounds that Dean made in bed, caramel and coarse black coffee.  He swallows Dean’s moans as he kisses him, his splayed fingers sliding over the planes of his chest.  
  
After a moment or two longer, Dean lifts himself slightly to retrieve a bottle from the bedside table which he uses to slick his fingers.  He kisses Castiel again as he slowly sinks one finger, then a second, into heat of his body, drawing a quiet, overeager moan as the angel presses up against him.    
  
The familiarity seems to amplify the sensation of impending loss.  Dean finds his movements quickening, the desperation rising again as the realization this is the last time hits him again.  He feels his throat constrict and he kisses Cas demandingly, as though it is the other man’s fault.  Castiel welcomes him,  wrapping his arms around his neck, and holds him close as he kisses him hungry.  His voice somehow maintains its characteristic, nasal monotone even while he murmurs affirmations as he presses into the movements of Dean’s fingers.  With his grace flickering out, he is more reliant on his vessel’s senses, making him easy prey to the hunter’s skillful ministrations as he opens and prepares him  
  
“Dean,” he half-begs, and perhaps it’s too soon, maybe it’s too late, but his lover is between his legs again immediately, kissing him as though he’s afraid that he’ll vanish if he breaks contact.  It has turned heated, frantic.    
  
He eases forward, pressing slowly into the welcoming heat of his body as his lover gasps against his mouth.  Castiel’s body grips and cradles him, easing up before tightening again.  He reaches up to grip Dean’s shoulders, keeping his face close.  He opens his eyes and watches his lover’s pleasured, heartbroken face and wonders how he can be both.  He kisses him again hard, wanting to chase off the sadness; this should only bring Dean happiness because he loves him, and they’re together in that moment.  
  
Dean keeps them close, their bodies pressed together seamlessly from waist to shoulder as he moves within him, maybe too hard, maybe too wanting.  Cas isn’t loud, but he never is.  Instead, he is earnest - every sound is somehow eloquent.   He kisses the angel again, needing to feel his gasping mouth under his.  
  
“Dean,” he moans between kisses, digging his fingers into his shoulders, “Oh…”  
  
The hunter knows that this isn’t right, that he should just be holding his angel while his candle snuffs out.  He should be talking to him, telling him all the things that he should have been telling him for years.  He should be making his confessions and hearing his, admitting to the feelings that he has tried to deny since Cas pulled him out of the pit.  He shouldn’t be desperately fucking him into the stupid memory foam mattress, unable to express his need and - fuck it, his _love_ \- in any way other.  
  
 _This was the time it was supposed to work,_ he thinks frantically.  
  
Then he is crying again, and it’s worse because Cas isn’t.   He berates himself for ruining this further by being that douche who cries in bed, but he can’t stop either.  His angel kisses him again and again, telling him in quiet, passionate, heartbroken tones, “No, shh.  Don’t, shh.  We’re okay. Don’t. I’m right here. I’m still right here. I’ve got you.”  
  
The world is ending, they’re both fucking off for eternity - peace out, man - and Cas is telling him that things are alright.  He laughs at the utter ridiculousness of it, then kisses him again, messy and ugly, as his hands adoringly map the contours of Castiel’s chest and hips.  He feels himself getting close, but doesn’t want to because he can’t let this just end.  He can’t just let go and stop fighting.  
  
 _When he dies, the_ second _he dies, you sonuvabitch, the second he dies you take me back and you don’t ever let me fucking know, you hear me?_ he tells Gadreel vehemently, channeling all of his pain inward and hoping that the angelic dick feels every bit of it.    
  
Castiel’s movements have become more frantic as he pushes his hips up to meet Dean’s, his hands moving restlessly over his shoulders and neck.  Dean reached between them to grasp Castiel’s cock and strokes several times, guilty and adoring, then kisses the angel hard when he comes almost immediately into his hand.  He steals the soft, keening sounds from his mouth, his free hand coming up to grip his lover’s angular jaw and keep him close.  
  
He kisses him a moment longer, then pulls away and presses his face against his lover’s shoulder, murmuring his name like a benediction as he thrusts into him desperately, probably too rough, definitely far too vulnerable, and then comes with a short shout.  
  
They lie still for a moment, breathing hard and wrapped up in each other.  Cas’s face is hidden against his shoulder and his own cheek his pressed to the angel’s damp hair.  
  
“I love you, Cas,” he says forcefully, almost angrily.  Almost like a challenge.  
  
His lover’s voice is quiet, “I love you too.”  
  
Dean pulls back, shifting to the side and just holding him the way he’d wanted to before but hadn’t been able.   He knows that he shouldn’t have said it that way, like it had been obligatory, like the prelude to a fight, and he closed his eyes and squeezes Cas apologetically.  
  
“I do, though,” he adds firmly.  
  
Castiel turns in his arms, lifting himself up on his elbow so that he can look down at his hunter.  He smiles, looking genuinely happy.  It reminds Dean of stupid romantic movies when someone might be described as ‘glowing.’  Even though he is pale and the flush of arousal is uneven and blotchy over the angel’s otherwise dead white face and chest, there is something about him that glows.    
  
“I know, Dean.  I love you too.”  
  
It shocks him to see Cas so pale, though his lips are still slightly flushed from kissing him.  He can feel fine tremors running through the angel’s limbs, and Cas’ chest is cool where it presses against Dean’s, giving him a sudden surge of panic.  He pulls him close again, flattening his lover against himself and holding him tightly again, “Oh God, Cas.  How the fuck am I supposed to do this?”  
  
“It was my choice… and I am sorry.”  
  
He shifts to settle against Dean again, his body soft and yielding atop him.  He’s almost limp against him, soft-bodied the way an angel isn't.  The hunter feels that his breathing has slowed and his heartbeat is sluggish.  Without looking, he knows that Cas has closed his eyes.  
  
“I don’t understand though… if your light’s going out, why won’t you just be human?” Dean demands tearfully, pressing his wet cheek against Castiel’s cooler one again.  Adrenaline curls through him painfully as the terror rises, choking him. _This is it oh god this is fucking it._ “Why can’t you stay?”  
  
“I gave up that path when I made this grace my own,” he says tiredly, lifting his hand slowly to curl his fingers into Dean’s hair again, “This-”  
  
He cuts off with a sound of surprise when suddenly is on his back with Gadreel pinning him down.  The angel’s eyes are intense as he breathes, as though suddenly understanding, “ _Your_ grace.”  
  
Gadreel’s sword is in his hand, and Castiel is too weak to do anything as the angel grips his chin and tilts his head back.  He cries out pitifully as the blade cuts cleanly into his throat, still struggling slightly under the weight of the angel’s body while the cool tang of his own blood runs down the back of his throat, choking him.  
  
But then it’s over and Gadreel is sitting back with a weakly glowing vial in his hand.    
  
Castiel raises his hand to his neck to find that there is a thick smear of blood, but no underlying wound.  His eyes widen and he suddenly understands.  
  
By way of explanation, the angel tells him, “When it became your grace, you could no longer expel it.  However, it could still be taken the way that any grace can be taken.  I’m sorry, I did not understand before, otherwise I would not have let you suffer.”  
  
Seeing Gadreel again, where moments before he had only seen Dean, Cas feels a crushing horror.  It’s Dean’s body that is still slick with sweat, Dean who had just made love to him.  Dean’s mouth that had pressed fervent kisses to his neck and jaw, Dean’s bright eyes that had seemed greener from crying.  Dean who had begged him not to leave, but had ultimately left him instead.  The man was gone again, forever, lost inside the angel, and Castiel was _not_ dying, not spared from living without him.  
  
He scrambles to sit up, unselfconscious even though they are both naked, and hopelessly grabs for his hand.  He bows his head, touching his brow to Gadreel’s knuckles in a universal sign of supplication.  
  
“Please take this vessel instead.  I give myself wholly you to you, completely and without caveat,” he begs, his human voice strained and unusually emotive, “Please, please consider this offer.”  
  
“Castiel…” he breathes, surprised.  There is a hint of Dean in the intonation, but it has been years since Dean had called him by his full name.  _Cas, just call me Cas_ , the man before him silently begs, _Just be Dean.  You be Dean, I’ll be Cas.  Come_ on.  
  
The angels stares at the human before him who is gripping his hand and _praying_ as though he is praying to God.  The intensity moves him, but he shakes his head.    
  
Castiel holds tighter.  
  
“Sam won’t want you in that vessel.  Ever.  He wouldn’t reject this one.  Please, Gadreel, I beg you as your ally and your brother.  Please.  I give myself wholly and completely, for _God’s sake Gadreel, show me mercy_.”  
  
Gadreel pulls away easily, though his attention remains transfixed on his mortal brother.    He holds up the vial, which contains only a choking ember of an angel’s grace, and says, “I have the final component of the spell, and I must now challenge Metatron.  Your vessel is not strong enough to meet an archangel, and I am sorry.”  
  
The angel slides to his feet and dresses quickly while his human ally just watches him numbly. Though Castiel is still watching Dean’s body, the movements are inhumanly smooth and even; Gadreel does not move the way Dean Winchester moves and every gesture is an insult.    
  
“You should dress, Castiel.  You’ll get cold,,” he says gently.  
  
Castiel closes his eyes and curls up on his side in the bed, pulling the blanket up to cover himself.  Human emotions are so much more painful, so much more consuming; combining human emotions with angelic comprehension renders something so sharp that it takes his breath away momentarily.  
  
Gadreel makes a pained sound and doubles over, his hand instinctively grabbing for the top of Dean’s dresser.  Cass looks at him uncertainly, feeling a guilty surge of hope that Dean is somehow taking control back from the angel to come back to him.  However, it is simply that Gadreel has felt something that Castiel's human senses can't perceive.  Gadreel's eyes are closed for a moment as if he is fighting nausea, and when he opens them he looks vaguely ill.  
  
"Something..." he begins, swaying slightly, "Something is on the verge of breaking."  
  
A powerful tremor rumbles through the bunkers, knocking small objects off of shelves and rattling the building to its deeply set foundations.  
  



	14. Final Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Metatron makes the honorable choice. Sam finishes what he started.
> 
> *CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SON plays as we are treated to emotional clips of the season so far*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you skipped the last chapter, the plot points from the last chapter are:  
> 1) Gadreel let Cas spend his final hours with Dean  
> 2) Dean is emotionally constipated and spent this time having sex with Cas because he doesn't know how to just talk to him  
> 3) Dean managed to say that he loves him  
> 4) Cas says something that triggers an understanding in Gadreel  
> 5) Gadreel cuts out Cas' stolen grace, both saving his life and giving him the final ingredient for the spell to open heaven. (The grace had become Cas's grace, which was both why Cas couldn't just expel it and why Metatron's reversal spell didn't work)  
> 6) Now human and graceless, Cas begs Gadreel to take him as his vessel and release Dean  
> 7) Gadreel refuses because Cas's vessel is too weak to face Metatron.  
> 8) Gadreel seems to be nauseated and comments that something is wrong.

  
Metatron's expression of devastation reaches past Kevin's hatred to inspire an answering pity in his human heart.  As a naked soul, he understands things much more clearly and moves more easily through both deep concepts and complex emotions; at that moment, he is able to conceptualize the angel's catastrophic loss.  He feels his incomprehension and his sudden, mortal loss of faith.  
  
"I don't understand," Metatron repeats numbly, "It's _correct_ , everything is right."  
  
"Maybe it's God's way of saying you can't take his place," Kevin offers.  
  
"Then why won't _he_ come back?" Metatron demands, "What does he expect us to do?  How does he expect us to feel when he just walks away?"  
  
Kevin doesn't have an answer.  He watches as Metatron paces back and forth, flaming wings flicking agitatedly in and out of existence.   
  
"Why did he tell me everything if not to prepare me?  I thought-"  
  
"Maybe God just knew you liked stories and gave you the best one he knew?" Kevin suggests quietly.  
  
The archangel stops dead in his tracks and just looks at him, struck by the simple logic to Kevin's statement.  He had made a human error: he had overestimated his own importance.  He was wrong and he was not worthy.  It was the final, crushing argument in their debate.  
  
"Even if I could craft a story like that, and even if I could preserve the world exactly as it is... I would never have shared it just because a child was eager to listen.  I couldn't even bear to share my father's words with you," he says quietly.  He shakes his head, his expression oddly human, "I am, as you posed before, not worthy.  Were you another angel with a blade forged from your words, that would have been the killing blow."  
  
Kevin sees for a moment the full glory of the archangel, a sight that no living human had seen.  He sees his broad, graceful wings and his elongated limbs and hands, though tricks of the light make them difficult to count.  He is wreathed in a beautiful flaming halo; his eyes burn brilliant with intelligence.  There are stars within him and around him.  And yet, at his heart, there is something unmistakably human in his outline.  
  
His voice is the cry of thousands, and though there are many words sung at once, the meaning when he speaks is singular.  Kevin recognizes it as the true firm of Enochian, a language he can never speak because he has only one voice.  He wants to cover his ears and close his eyes, but he is transfixed.  
  
"So by rights, it is my obligation and my honor to fall upon my own sword."  
  
"What…?” the human breathes in confusion, his brow furrowing.  His comprehension of the words is slowed by translation, but the meaning comes through suddenly.  He knows intuitively that the angel can't live with this new lesion in his identity.  As a being woven of words and ideas, he has been fatally wounded by the revelation that the truths that he had sewn into himself were fallacies. Already his outline is diminished in magnitude as he unravels.  
  
“N-no!" Kevin yells, though the flaming creature has already drawn a shining blade several meters long.  
  
As he plunges the sword into his chest, the room seems to burn white hot for a moment, as though the garden has been transformed into the heart of the sun.  
  
The human vessel crumples and falls, burned out and empty, to the concrete path.  It is again just a human body made of flesh and bones, soft hair and limp fingers, with blood spreading and cooling on the cold sidewalk.  
  
Kevin feels another shift, then a sickening lurch as the lights fade and go dark.  
  
 _There are no angels in heaven_ , he realizes in a panic.

  
\--------------------

  
  
 _Are you ready?  Yeah, this is fine, really, it's great, I'm_ totally _into dying.  Great because I'm_ totally _into being human.  Yeah? Yeah.  Great, we both get what we want.  Oh, fuck it all, Moose, you started this; don't give me that kicked puppy look._  
  
They start from the beginning, going through each portion of the rite exactly as it was performed months before.  They’re uncertain as to whether it’s necessary, but they’re not rushing, not exactly.  
  
This time, though, it is strangely amicable.  Sam does not want to spend his final hours with Crowley, but he also doesn't want to spend them alone.  For all that the demon has done, there is a familiarity to him that is almost comforting in the absence of friends.  When his human self comes through more obviously, Sam is almost sad that he won't be alive to see the final result; it's become obvious that he will never again be Fergus McLeod, but it's just as clear that he will no longer be Crowley, the King of Hell.  
  
"What're you gonna call yourself?" Sam asks tiredly, leaning against the tabernacle.  
  
"Oh, I don't know," Crowley replies in a cheeky tone, more demon than human in that moment, "Tom.  _Bill_.  I don't know."  
  
"You're definitely a Dick."  
  
The demon chuckles immaturely at that, considering it much more seriously than he should have.  His tired face is amused, "Richard it is then .  Truth in advertising."  
  
Sam laughs to himself, looking at the remaining vials and then at the clock on the face of his phone.  He half wished that someone would call, but there’s no one to whom he’d really like to speak.  Well, he’d like to talk to Dean, but at the moment he knows that Dean’s phone would be answered by Dean’s voice with Gadreel’s intonation.  That’s not something he’s not eager to deal with; as it is, he knows that the angel will be furious when he learns that he’s left him.  
  
Dean might never even know.  
  
 _Enough of that,_ he decides.  There two more treatments, just over an hour left to this strange mortal life.    
  
Crowley smirks, "Having second thoughts?"  
  
"No," he replies simply, "Not about this.”  
  
"About something else?” the demon presses, eyebrows raised and dark eyes intense.  
  
“We’ve all got things we wished we did, I guess,” Sam muses absently, shrugging one of his broad shoulders, “Nothing I’m gonna dwell on, but y’know, it’s hard not to think about it.”  
  
“It’s not exactly as though you’ve lived a charmed life.”  
  
“No.”  
  
"Interesting, though, which is more than a lot of people.  It's strange" Crowley says, sitting back more comfortably, "Even before all of this human blood and repentance business, I always found you and your brother very interesting. Maybe that's why I never tried quite hard enough to kill you."  
  
"Thanks man, that's great," Sam says drily. He picks up his phone again and brings up the splash page of one of the local news sites.  He is wondering how successful the two angels have been.  The news sources and police blotters been very quiet all day, which leads him to believe that either nothing has happened or nothing went catastrophically poorly.  
  
"No, really.  Here were two assholes who were _so guilty_ and _so idiotically_ _devoted_ to each other-"  
  
"Really, Crowley, thanks."  
  
"-that they could just say fuck it to everything and throw themselves off the edge over and over.  And somehow, someone always caught you and tossed you back."  
  
"Hell's afraid of us and heaven doesn't want us," Sam laughs good naturedly.  
  
"Still, fascinating to watch,” Crowley muses, laughing to himself.  
  
The younger Winchester laughed, “Right, yeah, thanks.  Thanks a lot.”  
  
“But your brother is an angel tux now, hm?” the demon asks, not entirely unkindly despite his wording.  He expels a thoughtful breath as a little huff, “Well.  Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, but I can’t help but assume that it’s temporary.”      
  
“Maybe this time’s the time that it’s all gonna stick.  I’ll stay dead, Dean’ll stay possessed.  Y’know, like normal people.”  
  
Crowley snorts at that, “Neither of you are normal.”  
  
Sam smirks.  
  
“Well, you aren’t.  You can’t just think that everything happens to you two for no bloody reason.”  
  
“The reasons are never good.”  
  
“Well, maybe not for you.  But think of it this way - if you’d been someone else, some middle-class, white-collar schmuck, the apocalypse would have happened, the human race would,” he pauses, his brow furrowing, “Why the hell am I giving a bloody pep-talk to Sam Winchester?”  
  
“Because,” Sam comments, laughing, “You want to make sure I like you enough to untie you before I finish this, otherwise you’re pretty much stuck in that chair till either you starve to death or some demons find you.”  
  
“I would rather like that, yes,” Crowley admits.  
  
It isn’t the reason that he’s attempting to comfort his captor, though.  He feels as though he’s settling now, as though he's turning into the person who he will be once the ritual has been completed.  Maybe it will change with that last infusion of blood and that final invocation, but he wonders how different he will really be - or if he will be as he is now, Crowley with a conscience, Crowley without bloodlust, Crowley with his soul untwisted.    
  
He wonders now what kind of demon he actually was; he was certainly horrible, certainly a twisted creature.  And yet, part of him realizes that he was never as hard as Abaddon or as malicious as Lillith.  He was never as motivated as Yellow Eyes or as self-preserving as Meg.  But it isn’t as though he was better, no.  It isn’t as though he didn’t deserve his position.  The difference between him and other demons had been moderation;  he had been as hard as he needed to be, caused as much pain as suited his purposes, worked only as hard as he needed to, and saved his own skin only when the rewards outweighed the risks. As far as demons went, his strength had been cleverness and innovation.    
  
He is still proud of his dealing, his scheming, and his subtle human seductions.  He is proud of how he had transformed Hell from a stinking, bloody, messy pit into a sterile, joyless, bureaucratic queue.  Just a horrific and he didn’t ruin his shoes every time he needed a walk around. He didn’t see why it needed to be disgusting, why blood and entrails and feces were just so popular.  He is proud that he could overcome the basic demonic nature while still doling out eternal torment.  
  
And now he is also proud of his contributions to averting the apocalypse and finishing off Dick Roman.  
  
Huh, maybe he doesn’t want the name Dick after all.  Not when that jackass had had it first.  
  
He looks back to Sam expectantly and notices that the hunter has pulled out his phone.  
  
“Dean can’t read it, Castiel is probably dead already,” he says, “And if you want to talk to Gadreel, you can just pray.”  
  
Sam just raises his eyebrows and slips the phone back into his pocket.    
  
They don’t talk again for an hour.  
  
By that time, Crowley is shaking again as the mixture of human and demon blood in his veins turns volatile.  His head is bowed and his eyes closed; his hair is damp with sweat.  He doesn’t make a sound beyond painful breathing.  
  
He is surprised when he feels a cup being held to his lips again.  He drinks deeply, letting the water soothe his throat and moisten his tongue.  It occurs to him that there will be a number of days, possibly weeks, when he will be weak and tired as his body, which was never really his, recovers from the foul treatment of the last few years.  He considers his broken cheekbone and atrophied muscles and extrapolates from there.  
  
He opens his eyes when Sam screws the cap back onto the Thermos.  The hunter is methodical, though his movements seem sluggish.  Crowley can tell that Sam is tired, that the time since the angel has left him has been hard on his ailing human body.  He is pale and weary, and many of his movements betray chronic aches.  
  
They don’t speak as Sam kneels down to loosen the ropes around his ankles, then untie his wrists.  

  
He looks up at him thoughtfully, though his expression is neutral.  It is difficult for Crowley to tell what Sam is thinking at that moment, though he can hear a slightly emotional quaver to his voice when he speaks.  
  
“All right.  It’s about time.”  
  
Crowley nods uncertainly.  To his surprise, it feels as though his tongue is welded to the roof of his mouth.  
  
Sam pulls something out of his pocket and rests it on the top of Crowley’s thigh.  The demon reaches for it and then jerks his hand back as he recognizes it as an anti-possession charm.  Pausing briefly, he instead picks it up by the attached chain and holds it up to examine it.  
  
“The second I finish this, you put that on,” Sam tells him, “I don’t… I don’t know exactly how this is going to work, if the demons outside of Hell are going to get pulled back in, or if the ones who are outside will be trapped up here.  I don’t know if they’re going to be able to tell where this all went down.”  
  
He takes a deep breath and then drags his fingers through his soft, dark hair, “There’s demon warding on this place that should last a bit, and the Impala’s outside.  You’ve spent some quality time in the trunk, so you’ve got some idea of what’s in there.”  
  
Crowley makes a face, but it’s half-hearted.  He’s listening.  
  
“So… yeah.  You make your way to town and get to a hospital, recover a bit, then you get that symbol tattooed on you.  No joke, I’m guessing that if these guys are out, they’re gonna be after you.  And they’d love you as a meatsuit.”  
  
Sam straightens, climbing to his feet.    
  
Crowley pauses, then holds out his hand, “It’s been fun, Moose.”  
  
The hunter looks at his open palm for a moment, then clears his throat.  He reaches over and clasps his hand.  _Why the fuck not, really, why the fuck not._  
  
“Fun’s not the word that I’d choose, but yeah.  Good luck.”  
  
The contact is brief, and a moment later, Sam stands beside him with the final vial.  He takes a deep breath, then injects Crowley with the syringe.  
  
“ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, hanc animam redintegra, lustra…._ ”  
  
As he slices open his palm with the knife, the orange glow begins again in his forearms.  He can feel it all through his body, burning hot and purifying.  Part of him half-hopes that someone will save him, that Dean will bust in and start yelling.  _Sammy, stop!  Easy there. Okay. Just take it easy. We got a slight change of plan. Metatron lied. You finish this trial, you're dead, Sam._  
  
 _Yeah, I know,_ he thinks, closing his stinging palm and just feeling the blood seekping between his fingers.  
  
He glances toward the closed door of the church, which doesn’t even rattle with the steady winds.  No one is coming and he realizes that it’s better this way.  It is time to finish this and he is remarkably okay with it; he can only trust in everything that he’s known.  
  
He turns back to Crowley, who is watching him with wide, actually frightened eyes.  
  
He reaches out and strikes him with his bloody palm, then crumples to the floor.

  
  
  
\----------------------------

  
  
  
The only light now comes from the center of the garden, where the universe glows gently from below.   This time, Kevin walks toward it without fear.  The sight is brain-bending and slightly painful; it is only the fact that he is a prophet that keeps him from from going mad just from looking at it, his soul burned out by an enormity whose very concept won’t even fit in his mind.  
  
He realizes suddenly that it’s quiet, without the sounds of the garden.  He no longer sees the silhouettes of leaves or the random movements of insects; everything is still, as though the world is just a flat, uninterrupted plane of darkness with one night-light in the middle.  
  
There is a silhouette beside the edge, looking down.  
  
“So shines a good deed in a weary world,” Chuck comments, his face illuminated only from below by the bright, endless universe beneath them.  
  
He isn’t quoting _The Merchant of Venice_ ; despite being a language arts kind of guy, he says it with the intonation of Gene Wilder in _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_.    
  
“You know, when I was writing the Supernatural series, I mean, before I realized I was just writing down stuff that was actually happening,” he began, his thin face surprisingly serious as his dark eyes considered something far below them, “Sometimes I’d sit back and go ‘Y’know, Chuck, it’s getting a little unrealistic having so many bad things happening to the same two guys.’  And man, on top of that, they _always_ make the right choice and do the right thing?”  
  
He pauses thoughtfully and drags his fingers through his short, unruly curls, “But the stories kept coming, fans kept reading them, and I kinda went ‘Huh, okay,’”  
  
Chuck turns to Kevin in the partial darkness and said, smiling slightly, “You know what makes it work though?  The fact that there _are_ guys like this, and everyone knows someone, to a lesser extent, who’s carrying the world on his shoulder.  Some guys will just make the sacrifice every time.”  
  
“Why did you do this?” Kevin asks, his voice slightly cold.  
  
Chuck doesn’t answer.  He instead walks over to the patch of darkness where Metatron’s mortal vessel lies unmoving on the floor.  His fingers are light and surprisingly affectionate as he lightly touches his shoulder, then reaches past him for where Castiel’s small vial of grace is glowing amidst various fleshy unpleasantries.  
  
He stands and wipes the dead angel’s blood off on his jacket, then turns it over thoughtfully in his hand, watching in wonder as the blue fire shifts and reshapes itself like molten glass or the heart of a nebula.    
  
Kevin watches him, feeling a chill catch him as the air begins to cool in the new darkness of heaven.  
  
“The lights are out in heaven,” he points out unnecessarily.  
  
“And Sam Winchester just closed Hell with seven angels inside,” Chuck replies, looping back to face him.  
  
“What do I do?”  
  
He reaches out and places the glowing bottle into the younger prophet’s hand.  
  
“Tell the guys I said hi, okay?”  
  
Kevin blinks, “Tell me what to do.  Why won’t you tell me anything or help me?”  
  
The taller man leans in and plants a kiss on his forehead, simultaneously pushing his palm against Kevin’s face and pushing him backwards.  Kevin’s arms windmill in alarm as he staggers, off-balance, and then tumbles backwards.  
  
He is aware that he is falling from great height, but there’s no accompanying sensation.  

  
  
\------------------------------------------

  
  
Gadreel stumbles, falling to one knee in Dean’s bedroom.  Castiel still does not rise to help him.  He watches, transfixed, as the angel pushes his hands against his face, his entire body shaking.  
  
“It’s all _wrong_ … Castiel, can’t you feel it?”  
  
“What?”  
  
The ground jerks once and then shudders, more violently than before.  Cas feels a jolt of fear in his stomach, but he doesn’t know what’s happening.  He is not an angel, so he is limited to what he can perceive through his human senses - he can’t feel the twisting, cosmic imbalance that is making the older angel physically ill.  
  
“It’s Heaven,” Gadreel breathes, and his hushed urgent voice more closely resembles Dean’s.  
  
“You need to perform the rite,” Cas tells him firmly, finally sitting up and reaching for his clothes.  He angrily punches his arms through the sleeves of his shirt to turn them right-side out, then buttons the cuffs and front with clumsy, uncoordinated fingers, “You need to do it now.  You have everything you need.”  
  
“Except the incantation.”  
  
“Crowley knows it,” the human says flatly, struggling into his briefs and then trousers, “Go to Crowley and get the words from him.”  
  
There is a tone of impatience to the former angel’s voice, as though he feels his elder brother is acting like a lost child.  He is unsympathetic to the illness and imbalance that Gadreel is suffering, seeing him at the moment as only an agent of unfairness and pain.  As a human, Castiel is heartbroken and petty.  
  
“Where is he?”    
  
“The basement.  The dungeon.  You know that, you saw.  You watched when Sam went down there, _you made Crowley lie to Sam and Kevin there_.  You know exactly where the damned demon is!”    
  
Gadreel suddenly realizes the extent of Castiel’s anger with him.  When he looks at him, he knows that though the newly-human angel has pledged his forgiveness, he is wounded by his losses.  He nods quickly as though he is taking an order from a superior officer, then turns and walks out of the room.  
  
Castiel watches him, then finishes dressing.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's gonna get worse before it gets better... stay with me. :)


	15. Divinity

Crowley reels, his entire body aching in a strangely glorious way.  He knows that he must have briefly lost consciousness, but he neither remembers blacking out nor waking up.  At this moment, his mind is clear and the persistent burn in his veins has cooled.  He feels his heart beat, he feels his lungs swell and then empty of air.  Even the still, stale air of the church feels somehow light and luminous, as though he is inhaling starlight.    
  
Then he remembers, really remembers, and he fumbles to drop the anti-possession charm over his head in a fit of trembling urgency.  There is a thrilling surge of extremely human adrenaline running through him, making his hands shake and his empty stomach turn uncomfortably; even as his movements are jerky and uneven, and as his mind rebels against the change, he can't help but feel excited by his recovered humanity.    
  
He reaches down to finish untying his legs, avoiding looking at the still body on the floor.  He can’t look at Sam, not yet; he knows that looking at the fallen man, who really was lamentably young, would leave him too distracted to accomplish what needs to be done.  It isn't that he is emotional, as much as that he simply _has_ emotions and doesn't know how they will affect him.  
  
With his ankles unbound, he forces himself to his feet, then staggers when his muscles strain to support him.  It has been months since this body actively moved about and his limbs are lethargic. _I’m practically fucking veal,_ he thinks, willing himself to stay upright.    
  
He looks around the church, relieved to find that it is still quiet.  Deprived of any extrasensory abilities, he must rely on his eyes and ears to determine what threats surround him; there is no way of knowing if the air is buzzing with demons or if the world is now a safe-haven for humans and monsters alike.  
  
His breathing comes in quick, painful gasps.  He reaches for the Thermos and keys that Sam left on the tabernacle for him, forcefully turning away from where the enormous man lies limply in the aisle.  He won’t look yet.  When he turns around, he will give him one look, just one, to honor him.  Then he will walk past him to the door, then to the Impala.  
  
 _Yes,_ he thinks, nodding to himself as he fumbles with the cap to drink thirstily from the bottle of water.  _Yes, this is what will happen._  
  
He is interrupted by a pained sound from behind him.  He turns sharply on his heel to see Dean Winchester staring down at the body of his brother.    
  
 _No,_ he reminds himself, _That is_ not _Dean Winchester_.  
  
Gadreel drops to his knees beside Sam’s still body, then pulls him up into his arms easily.  His shoulders are shaking, and even though it is unnecessary to breathe, he is taking many short, uneven breaths as he pushes Sam’s hair back from his face.  Seeing Crowley, human Crowley, he understands exactly what has happened and what Sam has sacrificed; the entirety of his angelic mind is consumed by grief.

To his surprise, Sam groans, then cries out in more obvious pain.  
  
Gadreel immediately lays his hand against his chest, feeling inside for the damage. Sam’s internal organs are burned and abraded, almost liquified, almost the way an angel’s vessel would be wounded after being stabbed with an angel blade.  Blazed out inside with glory, with grace.   
  
“I can’t heal you… this is… this is too much.”  
  
The younger Winchester shakes his head.  He knows that the only reason why the trial didn’t kill him immediately is because of the months that Gadreel had spent healing him from inside.  It had bought him a few minutes.  Lying here in mindless pain, he isn't sure that it was better this way.  He has the consolation of Gadreel's presence now, but it comes at the expense of not seeing his brother.  That makes it hard to look at him, hard to hear his voice misused as it is by the angel.  
  
“You don’t need to die,” Gadreel tells him frantically, “I could be inside you again, just say yes to me.  You can’t die if I’m inside you.”  
  
Sam looks up at him finally, his eyes rapidly losing focus.  He’s past the point of speech, just past coherent thought.  He knows that letting Gadreel back in would save Dean and he wants to say yes.  He wants it just as much for himself; he doesn’t want to die, but he also wants the angel within him for his own reasons.  He wants that closeness back, that feeling of safety that came from loving someone who was impossible to lose.  He wants someone who understands him because they know his soul.  His body convulses hard, the pain overwhelming all of his other cognitive abilities.    
  
He lacks the strength to speak.  He closes his eyes, trying to regroup and gather the strength to move his mouth, or even the focus to pray to the angel.  His angel.  His angel who could be with him again, who would free his brother and save them both.  
  
“Yes,” he breathes.  
  
But Gadreel is slowed by the angelic sickness, the imbalance that is even now tearing apart God’s design.  Before he can take the hunter, Sam goes limp in his arms, his heart stopped permanently as an unseen reaper touches his chest.  
  
Gadreel’s eyes widen and he desperately searches for the soul within him.  He exerts his full strength to wake him in an effort to draw the life back into his still body.  But just as he couldn’t truly heal the wounds of God’s grace, he can’t reverse what Sam has done or take back his sacrifice.  
  
“No,” he whispers in Dean’s husky voice, “No.  No, no, no…”  
  
He casts his eyes upward, knowing where Sam has gone.  He could follow, he would follow.  He has the means to open the doors, and he will challenge any angel in order to find him.  He would challenge the creator himself. Gadreel gently lowers his body to the floor.  He doesn't want to release the body because of what it symbolizes, but it is easier than he expects; Sam isn't there anymore.  Sorrow and hope war for dominance, kept in check by determination.  His eyes blaze blue and his wings, green and gold, spread to span the width of the church as he turns his attention to Crowley.  
  
Crowley had sincerely hoped that the angel had forgotten him.  Seeing it wasn’t the case, he tries to look casual as he leans heavily against the tabernacle.    
  
“Well.”  
  
“Tell me the spell, Crowley.”  
  
“Spell?” he asks uncomprehendingly, “For what?”  
  
“Opening heaven.  You have the translation, tell me the words,” he bellows and a touch of the angel comes through Dean’s harsh, angry voice.  There is a radiance, a ringing clarity that hurts Crowley’s human ears and makes him feel as though his skull will cave in.  He has heard angels before; he couldn’t understand them, but their voices didn’t hurt him.  He had seen flickers of their true forms, but never with a mortal’s eyes.  
  
“Ah…” he breathes, frightened and transfixed, “Stop shouting, stop shouting… I’ll tell you.”  
  
“ _Then tell me_ …”  
  
Gadreel emphasizes every word, taking a step closer ominously.  
  
“It’s just… you combine the Siren’s tongue, the right hand that pledged the oath to the fallen, the grace… and then it’s just _pateret aditus ad caelum pennis dat angelis retro ad cavea grex Domini_.”  
  
The angels walks past him and his wings narrowly miss sweeping over the former demon.  Instead, they snap closed with a sound like a thousand pieces of paper in the wind.   As he steps up, he lays the spells out on the altar in one smooth movement.  The altar stone has been gone for ages, so it is no longer a consecrated place as much as it is just a flat surface.    
  
“If you’re lying to me,” he says warningly, looking up at Crowley.  
  
He is interrupted by doors of the church opening with force enough to knock them against the walls, tearing them off of their groaning old hinges.  The wind, which had started to blow when Heaven’s lights went dark and picked up when the doors of Hell had closed, whips up the aisle, ruffling through Sam’s hair and drawing a startled gasp from Crowley.  Crowley immediately wonders, almost self-consciously, if _he_ had actually made that little sound.  
  
“You have something that belongs to me,” Abaddon purrs, lifting her truncated forearm.  It's a clean wound that seems to have been cauterized by Gadreel's blade; it still looks grotesque, though almost cartoonish now that is clean.  
  
The hand on the altar twitches in her presence, seeming innervated by her voice.    
  
“And don’t think I won’t pluck your damned wings off, angel.  Gadreel, you fool, you stupid, stupid creature.  You let the Winchesters close Hell with me on the wrong side of the door.”  
  
Crowley closes his eyes briefly.  _Of course._ It would have been too easy if there weren’t demons trapped outside of Hell.  The ground trembles and the storm outside intensifies.  
  
“You feel that?  That’s Hell, that’s Hell _angry_.  That’s Hell trying to rip its doors off so that it can swallow you up, swallow up the whole. damn. world,” she says, jerking her hand upward and causing the floorboards to buckle and bend, breaking the lines of salt and runes that were supposed to keep her back, “But don’t worry, precious, I’m going to kill you first.  You’ll never even have to see.”  
  
She strides forward up the aisle, stopping a few feet before Sam’s body. She looks at the fallen Winchester, then at Crowley, then lifts her eyes to Gadreel’s challengingly.  One corner of her dark red mouth quirks up in amusement before she leans forward and spits on the corpse.  
  
Gadreel roars in fury and the sound is enough to make Crowley double over in pain with his hands pressed over his ears.  Abaddon laughs, unfazed, then laughs, “What are you going to do, pretty boy? I’ve learned not to be afraid of angels.”  
  
She pulls a gleaming angel sword from her belt and holds it expertly in her right hand.  Her smile is brash and beautiful, cocky, even as the demon roils hideously behind the human facade.  
  
Gadreel draws his own sword, his brow drawn down darkly.  It is an expression that Abaddon has seen before on Dean Winchester’s face, but it has been distorted almost cartoonishly by the angel’s wrath.  
  
“I’m an angel to be afraid of,” he growls, “I took your hand and I sealed you into that body.”  
  
“Oh, I will take that back,” Abaddon snarls and gives Sam’s body a sharp kick as she steps over it to come fearlessly into Gadreel’s reach, “And I will take your grace, angel, I will cut it out of your throat.  And then I will once there is room for me in there, I will possess that body while your _great big angelic mind_ flails desperately against my control.  And I will ride you around, I will _subjugate_ you, until the Earth falls to ruins and Hell rises up to overtake it.”  
  
Gadreel’s blade meets her with a sharp, echoing ring.  He is stronger than she is, but he has never been a warrior; by contrast, she is one of the finest soldiers of heaven or Hell.  Her lithe body twists and turns, her own angel blade moving in tight, controlled arcs as she dodges and weaves.  
  
It is all too fast for Crowley’s eyes to track.  He backs up as far as he can, carefully staying out of the range of the angelic swashbuckling.  Without seeing, he knows that Gadreel can’t win; even trapped in that body and left with only one hand, Abaddon is the fiercest of Lucifer’s generals and Gadreel is little more than a shepherd.  All of the angelic speed and strength in the world can’t help him as long as the Queen of Hell has the right weapon.    
  
 _Oh, to be a million miles away._  
  
He closes his eyes, sluggishly working his way through a million pieces of information that are suddenly packed into a consciousness that is too small to contain several hundred years worth of knowledge.  He is frustrated and disoriented in his own mind; he catches on to a a thread of language and recites carefully, almost as though he's afraid the words will burn his own tongue.  
  
“ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica-_ ”  
  
Abaddon arches back, her face twisted in fury.  She knows she can’t be exorcised as long as she is bound within this body, but she doesn’t know what the words will do to her.  She turns her attention from Gadreel to Crowley, lunging violently in his direction.  Gadreel glances at the demon, then engages her again, jerking her back and bringing his sword down quickly, though ineffectually.  He is spirited, but not skilled, and no amount of anger will substitute for ability.  She twists lithely out of the way, using her demonic power to throw Crowley hard against the altar.  
  
Crowley groans in pain, dropping to the ground dazedly.  His muscles are weak from disuse and his body is atigued  from lack of food and water.  He tries to center himself to continue, then murmurs, “ _Ergo, draco maledicte_ -”  
  
Abaddon throws her arm in his direction and Crowley chokes, unable to breathe as his lungs are suddenly compressed.    
  
“ _Ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate-_ ” Gadreel continues in Crowley’s silence.  
  
Abaddon jerks back, snarling now in pain as well as anger, her sword still drawn.  She knows that she can’t chance either of them completing the exorcism, but she is unwilling to run either.  Most demons are proud, Crowley knows this.  He can't speak, but he knows that if Gadreel can stall her a moment longer then he will win because she is too proud to run.  Her sword flashes in the dim light of the church, narrowly missing the angel’s mouth.  The blade bites into his cheek and an answering red line of blood immediately springs to the surface, drawing an angry hiss from Gadreel as he twists just in time to save his vessel’s eye.  
  
“- _servire, te rogamus, audi nos_ ,” Gadreel finishes breathlessly.  
  
The demon shrieks in pain as the exorcism tries to tear her from the body where she is bound.  She staggers back, her face twisting and contorting in a strange combination of human and demon.  It’s like flickers of reality coming through a mask, almost electrical in intensity.  She is screaming profanity in a combinations of languages from English to something much older, something that hasn’t been spoken since long before Christianity.  
  
Finally, she arches back, her spine twisting unnaturally, and then vanishes in a sulphurous plume of black smoke.  
  
Crowley drags in a breath, but doesn’t get back to his feet.  He’s tired and every part of his body hurts.  He says quietly, still gasping, “That’s only a temporary fix… she’ll find her way back and I don’t want to be here then.”  
  
Gadreel nods.  He looks down at himself to see that the Queen of Hell’s blade has ripped jagged cuts into his sleeves and shirt front, nicking his skin.  It’s fortunate that none of the wounds are deep enough to pierce his grace; it’s easier now to see them than feel them, and he does not bother to heal the damage to his vessel.  
  
He walks slowly back up to the altar and looks down at the spell components.  Taking a deep breath, he murmurs, “ _Pateret aditus ad caelum pennis dat angelis retro ad cavea grex Domini._ ”  
  
All at once, he feels as though he can draw a deep breath again.  He hadn’t realized before that he was so tightly bound up inside without the ability to turn home.  It is what all angels want, what he wants, and where he will go.  The consequences and the hatred of his brothers doesn't scare him; his fire is lit by something stronger than divine light, and he will succeed.  He feels some of the nausea dissipate as the winds die down outside, but he is distantly surprised that he still feels unbalanced.  
  
  
\------------------------------  
  
Kevin is aware suddenly of the weight of his limbs and of a million distracting sensations.  His body is heavy, weighty.  He's always thought himself a bit on the thin side, a bit on the short side, especially compared to either of the Winchesters.  Even compared to Castiel.  But now he feels as though he is sturdy, more solid than anything he'd ever known.  Real.  Full of nerves that feel pain and pleasure and warmth, full of breath and blood and salt and water.  It’s overwhelming, suddenly wonderful and suddenly horrible all at once.  His eyes burn uncomfortably and he feels a sharp surge of fear and remembrance; panicked, he opens his eyes and is relieved to find himself staring at his bedroom wall.  
  
He sits up and rubs thick black soot from his eyes, leaving broad smears on his fingers and cheeks.  There’s a strange sensation of human frailty and a physical sense of loss, a wisp of uncertain mourning for his immortal afterlife and the family he left behind, as he slowly turns  to stretch his feet toward the floor.  
  
On his feet, he is slightly stiff as though he had simply slept wrong; he almost feels as though he has simply been dreaming and the whole thing had been a very detailed, self-important imagining.  He feels sick thinking that he hadn't actually seen his father, heavier than if he had said a permanent goodbye.  Still, Castiel’s grace is warm and glowing in his hand and he knows that he has another job to do.  It’s a beautiful thing having a task.  
  
“Castiel?”  he calls uncertainly in the hallway, “Hey, are you here?  Dean?  Dean?  I need you.”  
  
Castiel, now dressed, walks out into the hallway from Dean’s bedroom.  His hair is mussed and his clothes are rumpled; his face is blotchy from emotion and stubble-rubbed from kissing Dean.  He looks lost and incredibly human.  The sight shocks Kevin, who lingers uncertainly in the doorway; he wasn't prepared for a devastated former angel.  
  
“K-Kevin…?”  he asks questioningly, turning toward him with his brow furrowed.  Kevin is used to seeing him that way, perplexed, “How are you…?”  
  
The young prophet walks toward him, already holding out the vial, “You have to take this.  You have to fix things.  I don’t know how, but everything’s all fucked up.  Heaven’s empty and there are angels locked in Hell-”  
  
“Locked…?”  he asks, taking the vial and staring at it disbelievingly.  He doesn't want it.  
  
“Sam finished the trials,” Kevin says quickly by way of panicked explanation.  
  
Cas realizes abruptly that was the reason why Gadreel had vanished after storming up from the basement, cursing about Crowley; he had gone in pursuit of him wherever Sam had taken him.  He was nearly certain that it was the same site that Dean had chosen several days before, and he was just as certain that Sam was now dead.  
  
The understanding hits him hard.  His shoulders jerk forward and he closes his eyes, finally feeling as though the day had given him too much.  He was human, he was useless, and he could cry now.  
  
He doesn’t, though.  He struggles for a moment, his mouth twisting slightly as grips the vial hard.  Dean would not want him to cry; Dean had never seen him cry, and it seems like a betrayal to give that to Kevin instead.  He nods again, more to himself than the universe, “And Metatron?”  
  
“Dead.”  
  
He looks at the vial again.  He had entertained the romantic notion before of giving up his grace to stay with Dean.  He had actually offered to stay with the hunter for the rest of his life, and though his lover had seemed a bit overwhelmed by his devotion, he had seemed to want it.  Dean had wanted _him_.  That hadn’t worked out, and even knowing the reason why didn’t make Castiel feel less bitter about it.  Nothing ever worked out for them, not really.  Now he has no choice but to take back his grace and there is no personal loss or reward.  
  
“This is mine…?” Castiel asks, though the question sounds stupid aloud.  
  
Kevin nods quickly.  
  
The older man nods slowly, then says, “Cover your eyes.”  
  
The prophet doesn’t hesitate; he’s rightly a bit skittish about angelic light displays.  He covers his face with both hands and actually turns away from his ally, wishing he had more hands so that he can cover his ears as well.  Instead he hunches his shoulders slightly, letting the folded hood of his sweatshirt bump up against his earlobes as though that would help.  
  
Cas looks at him curiously, then takes his last mortal breath.    
  
He uncaps the vial and draws its contents into him.  The grace races through him, lighting him up like electricity through a circuit.  He feels it blaze.  He feels the welcome stretch of his own wings as the sheer power of his immortal mind overtakes and overwhelms his vessel’s senses.  
  
However, this is something different; it is his grace, but it is somehow more than his grace.  The power surges higher, higher than he has ever felt.  It is more than the Leviathans and all of the souls in Purgatory.  He is certain that he will burst into flames, or that his vessel will strip away, exploded by the power of what he has accepted into himself. Somehow, as impossible as it seems to be, he contains it; it is like the thin shell of a balloon somehow stretching to hold the sun.  Castiel blacks out with a short cry, his consciousness slipping back.  
  
The room burns without heat; a focused, brilliant light envelopes the space, so bright that Kevin can see it through his palms and his closed eyes.  The prophet makes a miserable sound, dropping to a crouch against the wall and curling over double to shield himself from whatever this is.  
  
And then it’s once again just the electric lights, which seem almost dark by comparison.  Kevin doesn’t move for a moment, but he hears the shift of wings behind him, the rustle of the angel’s clothing as he moves behind him.  
  
“Cas?”  he asks uncertainly.  
  
There is another sound, Cas's usual departure rustle multipled by a dozen, and then Kevin realizes that he is alone in the hallway.  He straightens and turns around to see that the hallway is covered in soot; the walls and floor are black, like the epicenter of a cartoon explosion.  More striking than that, however, are the prints of wings, drawn over the ash like white chalk on a blackboard, that radiate out from where Castiel stood.  There are many wings, at least a dozen, though it is difficult to count because of their size and overlap.  
  
“Kevin?” Charlie calls from the opposite end of the hallway, “What happened?  What was that light? What happened to the hallway?”  
  
As an afterthought, she asks, “How are you alive?”

It's hardly strange anymore.  
  
\-------------------------------------------------  
  
  
When Castiel appears in the church, Crowley is struck by how different he looks from when he saw him before.  Part of him is aware that it is the difference in himself, demon versus human, but he isn’t so foolish as to think that the angel is unchanged.  Looking at him, Crowley understands that the power in the angel is new and different from anything that he has ever seen before.  
  
He intuitively covers his eyes with both hands as angel as he walks up the aisle of the church without seeming to move.  
  
“Gadreel,” he says, his voice layered in voices that only the other only would hear.  
  
The other angel turns toward him, his eyes wide.  He recognizes what Crowley could not, what even Castiel hadn’t understood when he took in his grace; Gadreel understands because he is the only one of the assembled who has seen this face before; he is not addressing Castiel anymore.  He moves toward him but stops in the aisle, just past his beloved’s fallen body, and drops to his knees before the other angel with his head bowed.  This is what he wants, what all of the angels want, and even in his fear he is overwhelmed by love.  
  
The touch on Gadreel’s cropped hair, then his cheek, is glancing and very gentle, particularly in light of the sheer strength of those hands.  The angel knows that he could easily be killed, but he trustingly holds still and allows the exploratory brush of fingers over his vessel’s features.  
  
“Wait for me in the garden; we have much to discuss.”  
  
And just as suddenly, Gadreel is gone and Dean Winchester is waking to find himself kneeling before his lover.  He looks up uncertainly, meeting his eyes and understanding immediately that he is not Castiel.  At that moment, he knows that he should avert his eyes, but he doesn’t look away; he stares steadily at him, thinking that he is the most fucking beautiful, ridiculously terrifying thing that he has ever seen in his life.  
  
The angel smiles, amused, then walks past him to stoop down beside Sam’s fallen body.  Dean, freed from complete fascination by a few feet of space, scrambles to put together the full scene around him from the visual clues - empty syringes, cowering Crowley, Sam on the floor.  They are in that church, the same church where he himself had failed, and _Sam is on the fucking floor_.  
  
“Sam,” he breathes, though he doesn’t dare move.  
  
For a moment, everything is as Sam pictured it would have been if he had completed the trials the first time.  The new Winchester family is together - Kevin is at that moment frantically explaining the situation to Charlie over a suddenly sparse angel map, Dean is alive and devastated, and some version of Castiel is kneeling beside his body.  Hell has been closed and it seems as though everyone has some chance at moving forward.   
  
“I appreciate your sacrifice, Sam Winchester,” Castiel’s voice says as the angel reaches down and touches his brow.    
  
Sam drags in a startled breath, opening his eyes and looking around in slow confusion.  He feels heavy and disoriented, slightly cold.  He is distantly aware that this is real, but Castiel's focused expression gives a lingering feeling of unreality.  
  
“Cas…” he breathes, his eyebrows drawn slightly in disbelief.   “Are you God?”  
  
The last time that he was asked this question, it had been a kneeling Dean Winchester in Stull Cemetary, just outside of Lawrence.  The angel had turned the thought over in his mind, wondering then if he could be God just because Dean thought so; Dean didn’t believe in anything, but if he could believe in that, how could it fail to be true?  But he had laughed softly, smiling at his beloved’s newly healed face, and just said _That's a nice compliment. But no._  
  
Now, Sam Winchester had the same look of confused wonder, but the answer is different.  
  
“Yes, though only for this moment.”  
  
A tremor rattles the church, causing a shower of plaster to dust down from the ceiling overhead.    
  
“What’s happening?”  Sam asks quietly, letting his eyelids slip closed to avoid looking into the preternatural depths of not-Castiel’s eyes.  
  
“Castiel will tell you; I just wanted to thank you personally for your conviction,” he says, climbing to his feet and turning toward Dean again.  He is amused that the elder Winchester has been staring steadily this entire time, as though he had the right to watch.  As though he was unafraid, perhaps as though he still didn't believe.  
  
“You’ve been strong, Dean,” he comments, “You’ve both made the right decisions, every time.”  
  
The light seems to go out in his eyes all at once, and Castiel folds and sinks to the floor in the aisle.  He is still, more like a pile of discarded clothing than a celestial being.  Even at almost six feet tall, he manages to seem unassuming against the dusty, dirty, blood-spattered floor.  Dean, still staring blankly, takes a moment to register what has happened.    
  
“C-Cas?”  he asks uncertainly, stumbling to where he probably should have had the wherewithal to have caught him as he fell a moment before.  He pulls him up into his arms, glancing past him to Sam and then back, “Hey, man, wake up.”  
  
He can feel that the angel isn’t dead.  The tension of his limbs reminds him of when he and Sam had carried his unconscious body to the bed in a 1970-something Kansas motel.  It is different from an unconscious human and different from a corpse; Dean feels relieved that his angel is again his angel.  
  
Sam sits up uncertainly, as though he doesn’t trust that his insides aren’t going to ooze out as some sort of liquified post-trial slop.  He isn’t as strong as he had been with Gadreel sleeping inside of him, certainly not as strong as he’d been when he’d only been riding shotgun to his angel, but he knows that his body has been restored.    
  
“Where’s Gadreel?” he asks.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An actual, literal deus ex machina. ;) One more chapter to go!


	16. A Slow Ride Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life continues on.

It is almost a week before Castiel wakes up.  He is shaken and only half coherent for another two days before he finally ventures out of the room that Dean assigned to his "unconscious angelic ass."   
  
Dean balances his time between his talking to his brother and checking in on his angel, mixing in several long stints of conversation with Kevin, Charlie, and Crowley.  Part of him just wants to be left alone to deal with everything, but he simultaneously feels drawn to human companionship.  Kevin has a lot to tell him, but his recollections are hazy and become less linear as they progress; Dorothy has cut Charlie’s hair, making her look remarkably like some plucky action heroine; Crowley is quiet but informative.  
  
By piecing together information from all of them, Dean and Sam are able to put together a hazy image of the world at present.  
  
Most of the angels have returned to heaven; Charlie explains that there are fewer lights on the map now, and most of the dimmer lights were gone entirely.  Everyone agrees that this is a positive change, as none of the assembled had ever been too keen on the idea of heaven on earth.  The more they learned about angels, the less they wanted them around (with a few notable exceptions).  More concerning is the fact that the remaining angels are in two distinct clusters, centered in Texas and Colorado, which leads Dean to believe that the two angelic war leaders have not returned to heaven for fear of punishment and are instead rallying their troops for a final march on Earth.  
  
Gadreel, one of the few angels whose unique energy signature had been specifically identified and labeled, is no where to be found.  
  
Sam hasn’t said that this bothers him, but Dean knows that it does.  He knows enough from what he saw in Gadreel’s mind to know that there had been _something_ between his brother and the angel and it hadn't been completely one-sided; to his extreme displeasure (and despite his diligent avoidance) he knows that it’s only a matter of time before they have to talk about it.  He only hopes that he can talk to Castiel about it first so that he has some more insight into both angelic possession and Gadreel himself.  
  
The whole angelic possession thing has been weighing on him in general, despite that he doesn’t actually remember much of his time as Gadreel’s Porsche.  Part of him is thankful, but a larger portion feels squirmy and violated.  He is aware that prior to this, he had been one of the few in his tight circle of family and friends who hadn’t been controlled by something or another.  He hadn’t exactly been feeling left out; he could have stayed a possession virgin for the rest of his life.  
  
Instead, he has hazy memories of not controlling his body, of Castiel begging him for something, of feeling emotions that weren’t his own.  He has a new respect for Sam’s experiences with Gadreel, Lucifer, and Meg, though he doesn’t talk about that either.  He doesn't talk about it at all.  He knows he should, but it’s easier to bottle it up and tuck it away for later.  He said that he wouldn’t do that, but he knows that he can’t change himself completely.  
  
He is trying to change himself in the ways that matter.  At the church, he hugged his brother and told him he was proud of him.  He gruffly told him that he loved him, though he added a casual “man” to the end and then tried to play it all off.  He hadn't really thought that it would make a difference, but apparently those three words managed to put his brother at ease; he doesn't realize it, and Sam would never tell him, but it's not words themselves so much as that Dean had put aside his inhibitions to say them.  There's a slight shift between them after that makes things more comfortable, as though they could actually confide anything in each other again.  
  
From Kevin, they learn that there are angels trapped in Hell and that this is tearing at the foundations of God’s design.  There are not supposed to be angels in Hell, but they don’t know exactly what the consequences will be if the situation doesn’t change.  The tremors and storms are more of an annoyance than anything, though they have noticed a slow build in intensity focused on certain locations.  The hell gate in Wyoming is one of those focal points, which sends Dorothy and Charlie to the books to check the others.  
  
From Crowley, they learn that Abaddon is still alive and trapped in a one-handed body.  They know it already, but he explains in no uncertain terms that she is pissed off and has every intention of killing them as soon as she sees them.  He also admits that Linda Tran is still alive, and it is that piece of information coupled with his promise to restore her that keeps him alive and living at the bunker.  
  
It is also from Crowley that they learn the final detail that Sam needs to know - that Gadreel has been returned to the garden.  He doesn’t say it aloud, but he knows what this means.  He has known Gadreel’s mind and he has understood a simplified form of his memories; he feels his angel chafing at new bonds, punished now for his original failing and his escape.  He grieves, but he doesn’t talk about it.  
  
When Castiel finally pads out of the bedroom to join them in the kitchen, they realize that he has also been changed by their experience.  There is a slightly haunted look in his bright blue eyes as well as a new elegance to his movements.    
  
“I felt what it was to be God for a moment,” he tells Dean quietly, holding a mug of hot cocoa that he (of course) doesn’t drink.  Charlie had given it to him out of a need to give him _something_ , and as she watches him she hopes that he would at least find the warmth of the cup comforting in his hands.  
  
“I was… I was more than simply touched by God, he was me for a moment,” he says, shaking his head slowly, “He gave me that to both punish and reward me.  I restored my friends, but I saw how I failed in my play as creator.  I am both humbled and honored.”  
  
They all watch him as Dean reaches over to clap him manfully on the shoulder.  The gesture falls short somehow, and he instead finds himself lightly rubbing his shoulder and his upper back.  
  
“S’alright, Cas.  Easy.”  
  
The angel nods, “He has... changed me as well.  I am no longer simply an angel.”  
  
To Charlie’s chagrin, he sets the hot cocoa, unsipped, on the kitchen table and draws his angel sword.  Dean, who has seen the swords on many occasions and even handled Castiel’s specifically, looks at it with interest.  He has always been fascinated by the concept of an angel blade, though their use and ethics seemed more complex once they were rapidly collecting the swords of the fallen.  Kevin, who knows far more about the weapons than he ever wanted to know, only gives the discussion half of his attention.   
  
“A sword is a manifestation of an angel’s grace,” Castiel says by way of explanation, setting the weapon on the counter beside the cooling mug for their inspection, “Mine has changed.  This is an archangel’s blade.”  
  
“And what, you’re an archangel now?” Sam asks, looking at the sword.    
  
He doesn’t see the differences, but Dean does; the grip is longer, the crossguard is broader and more ornamental, and the chappe is slightly more angular.  While still a sleek, utilitarian weapon, it has a different gravity.  He wants to reach out and pick it up, but he hasn't been invited to do so.  
  
Castiel nods, “Yes.  I have been promoted.”  
  
“ _Upgraded_ ,” Charlie amends with an excited grin.  
  
The angel just looks at her, then nods again, repeating, “Upgraded.”  
  
Castiel also explains further what Kevin has already told them - that the angels in Hell are causing the intermittent tremors that are rumbling all over the surface of the Earth.  The surprising fact is that the tremors go through more than just earth and air; Hell is literally trying to shake the earth open.  There are several ways that the issue could resolve itself - they could attempt to release the angels without reopening Hell, Hell could force itself open completely and destroy the gate in the process, or the locks on the Cage could disintegrate under the strain and release Michael and Lucifer to strike down their brothers before slipping the gate and returning to earth.  
  
All of the possibilities seem rather grim, and Dean’s first suggestion is that they just drink heavily and go to Disney.  However, they all know that there is only one true option, and it involves going through Purgatory to Hell and back around.  Sam laughs and says that it is old hat, and Castiel says that it’s a stupid cliche.  
  
It feels as though everything is normal, and the new Winchesters are ready to resume life as they’ve always known it.  
  
Only one person is missing.  Even though Sam knows that the others don’t feel the same way, he wishes that Gadreel was busily forgetting a cooling cup of cocoa with their other angel.

  
  
\----------------------------------------------------

  
  
Christmas sneaks up on all of them a week later.    
  
Dean realizes on the 23rd and manages to eek out his usual assortment of gifts procured from the convenience store.  He sends the others into the storage to see if anything will pass as decent decorations, though his hopes aren’t high.  Dorothy, relying on her remarkably accurate recollections of Christmas with the Men of Letters, unearths a box of ornaments; in the absence of a tree, they decorate a barstool a la _Road House_ and Dean cackles his amusement to anyone who will listen as he winds garlands around the staircase bannister.  
  
Sucking on cheap candy canes from Gas and Go, they watch an assortment of lousy Christmas movies while packed around an ancient television with dodgy color.  It’s not Christmas the way any of them remember Christmas, but it is a temporary respite from the world of hunting.  
  
Castiel returns from reconnaissance in heaven in time to join them for _It’s a Wonderful Life,_ which Dean complains is the worst Christmas movie of all time.  He quiets slightly with Castiel sitting beside him on the sofa, close enough that their thighs are touching. The older hunter subtly stretches against the back of the sofa and resettles, which allows him to drape one arm around the angel and one about Charlie’s shoulders.  Both lean in against him comfortably.  Thinking that no one notices, Dean lightly rubs Castiel’s upper arm.  
  
Of course, everyone notices but they graciously pretend not to.  Even Crowley, who’s off on his own at a card table with a tumbler of scotch.  Sam, snugged into an armchair with a bottle of beer in hand, is half-tempted to tease.  But it’s Christmas and he’s feeling generous, so he saves it for later.  
  
The domesticity won’t last, so he just enjoys watching Kevin dozing under a pile of blankets while Dorothy rubs his back.  Sam doesn’t know when it happened, but Dorothy seems to have developed a soft spot for the resident prophet of the Lord.  Sam still hasn’t figured out if Charlie and Dorothy are an item, but he leans toward a slow-building yes.  They are too casually affectionate and they touch each other and whisper too often.  
  
He enjoys watching his brother deliberate kissing Castiel’s forehead.  He doesn’t think he will, given Dean’s insecurities, but he’s surprised to see that the hunter keeps tentatively leaning closer and then settling back.  Sam smirks to himself and takes a sip of his beer.  
  
He is suddenly overwhelmed by missing his own angel.  
  
With a groan, he gets to his feet, prompting Dean to try to straighten out his posture and seem less like he was trying to put the moves on the archangel.  The elder Winchester meets his eyes challengingly, as if daring him to say something, and all Sam can do is grin.  
  
“Where y’goin’?” Dean asks, though he is all but screaming _NO HOMO_ as he sits up a little and dislodges both Charlie and Cas from his sides.    
  
“I just want some air; I haven’t even set foot outside since like 3 days ago.”  
  
Dean nods slowly, settling back against the sofa again.  Cas, considerably less subtle than Dean would like, turns slightly and openly cuddles up against his side.  Charlie, noting Dean’s discomfort, attempts to cover for him by mimicking the angel’s pose on the opposite side, making the hunter look like some bizarre harem keeper.  
  
Sam raises his eyebrows; Charlie is almost the text-book definition of a beard tonight.  
  
“Yeah, go get some air,” Dean grumbles, his cheeks slightly pink, “Least then one of us isn’t getting freaking asphyxiated."  
  
Laughing to himself, Sam raises his now-empty bottle in toast and walks back out to the front door.  His smile fades noticeably outside the presence of his new family; his expression turns grim as he pulls on his boots and coat.  
  
It’s very cold outside.  It’s the sort of cold that completely lacks humidity, giving the impression of a crystal visual clarity.   The waxing moon glows off the individual glittering grains of unbroken snow, turning the winter scene a pale, crisp blue cast.  After his eyes adjust, Sam feels as though he could see for miles in the still, quiet darkness.  Watching Christmas movies has made him melancholy; real life, his anyway, didn't care that it was Christmas.  He wants to see a movement out of the corner of his eye and turn to see Gadreel standing on the snow beside him, but nothing seems to be moving at all.  
  
Sam shivers, watching the curls of his breath rise in the still air.  Raising his gaze higher, he looks at the millions of stars, pinpoints of light against the solid blue backdrop of the sky.  He wonders if Gadreel is seeing the same sky, but he knows that the angel’s former prison didn’t include a glimpse of the stars.  He closes his eyes and prays quietly, _I can't forget you.  I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm still here. I can wait for you._  
  
Predictably, there's no response.  No rush of wings.  Nothing.  He lifts his hands to his mouth and blows warm air into his curled, bare hands, cursing himself for leaving his gloves inside.  He knows that he should go in, but he feels like he's waiting for something.

The door opens behind him and he hears Dean cussing at the bite of the cold night.  
  
“For fuck’s sake, this is really what you wanted? _Cold_ air?”  
  
Sam laughs, though the sound seems muffled as it is absorbed by the snow, “You don’t have to be out here.”  
  
“Yeah, I do,” Dean replies matter of factly, moving to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him on the step.  Somehow proximity always makes it feel warmer, “There might be demons or angels or some shit and.... geez, you're not even smart enough to have worn gloves.  What the heck, Sammy.  Really?”  
  
The younger Winchester snorts, bumping his shoulder against Dean’s good-naturedly, “Seriously, go inside.”  
  
Dean’s quiet for a moment, then he huffs once and shudders against the cold, “Nah.  I been meaning to talk to you for a few days and this is as good a time as any.”  
  
What he really means is that he’s been doggedly _avoiding_ talking to him about a particular topic for quite some time, but that the last few days have made it obvious that it’s not something that he’s going to be able to dodge forever.  Sam looks over at him, knowing him well enough to know that Dean doesn’t really want to talk about this, and raises his eyebrows.  
  
“‘Bout what?”  
  
Dean clears his throat as though the extra half-second pause would make all the difference.  
  
“Gadreel.”  
  
“Ah,” Sam says.  
  
“Look, I know you two kinda had a… weird thing.  I got bits of that when he was in my head.  And y’know, I dunno how much you really reciprocated-”  
  
“All of it.”  
  
That shuts him up momentarily as he tries to refigure a strategy. He reaches up and rubs his chin uncomfortably, “Yeah, okay.  So you were also weirdly obsessed with that angel, I get it.  Angels have this way of just, I dunno… they see stuff, they get stuff.  And with Gadreel spending so much time in your head, it’s like, yeah, he got to know you really well…”  
  
“I got to know him too,” Sam replies quietly, looking over at his brother in the dim light, “It ended up kinda going both ways.”  
  
Dean realizes abruptly that he is totally unprepared for this conversation. He mentally blames Cas.  He nods several times quickly, looking for something to say.  
  
“So…” he clears his throat, “Okay.  You’re really into him.  Right.  Well.  Ah, well that’s cool.”  
  
Sam blinks at him slowly.  He’d expected him to be more negative, or at least more judgmental.  He’d expected Dean to tell him that it was wrong, and that he needed to bottle it up like a man and move on.  He'd expected some diatribe about possession and personal space violations.  He didn’t expect this awkward, quiet conversation and he doesn’t know what to say.  
  
Dean isn’t looking at him.  
  
“Okay… so.  If he’s… your… whatever… I suppose we should, ah, add jailbreaking him to the to-do list along with saving the world, huh?”  
  
At that point, Sam turns completely to face him.  He smiles in a strange relief, then leans over and grabs Dean by the chin in one hand as the other pulls one of his lower eyelids down as though he’s making some sort of slapdash medical diagnostic, “You drunk?  Possessed again?”  
  
His older brother splutters indignantly, swatting at him half-heartedly, “Screw you, you stupid dick.  I’m trying to be supportive here!”  
  
Sam laughs outright and grabs him in a tight hug, “Yeah, yeah.  Shut up.”  
  
Dean settles quickly and hugs him back, though only briefly before shoving him back, still protesting, “And I mean it.  If you want him, we’ll get him.  He’s gonna have to get his own meat suit though, man, cuz I’m _not_ getting involved in that.  Bad enough that I think he watched-”  
  
He cuts off abruptly, realizing that he was going basically out himself and Cas in one casual insult if he kept on going.  Yeah, the whole _watching them have sex_ thing wasn't cool either.  There were very few things about Gadreel that he was okay with, but he was going to try.  He rapidly continues, trying to sound natural even though he’s nearly just shorted out his own brain.  
  
“-every time you freaking showered, the pervert.”  
  
“Relax, Dean.  Seriously.”  
  
Sam smirks at him, clapping him on the back before slinging an arm about his shoulders.  Dean huffs in annoyance at him even as he leans closer to his brother’s warm body.  He can remember a lot of nights like this, Christmases both before and after their father died where it was just the two of them looking at some remote starfield with their fingers turning to ice in their gloves.  He hates snow.  He hates how people in movies always act like it’s so damn great, like it doesn’t sting on contact with bare skin and it doesn’t make your feet ache when the rubber soles of your shoes freeze brittle and unbending.  
  
Sam is thinking how much he wants to tell Dean that he knows about Cas.  He’s pretty sure he could play it off with a comment about how the Winchesters just go gay for angels, but he doesn’t think it’s the time.  It might be easier to just rip off the angel-print BandAid all at once, but he can tell that Dean’s had enough… and he’ll be much better adjusted once he’s snuck into bed with Castiel to talk about it.  
  
So they just stand there for a moment, till Dean shudders again and says, “We had the chick-flick moment, right.  Let’s go inside.”  
  
The comment about Cas warming him right up is right on the tip of Sam’s tongue, but swallows it.  Instead, he says, “You go, man, I’ll be in in like two minutes.”  
  
Dean grumbles, but heads inside, leaving his brother alone with the chill, the snow, and a hundred million stars.

  
  
\---------------------------------------

  
  
  
They consider laying low until New Year’s, between holiday travel conditions and the bitter cold, but Kevin has become restless and Crowley seems unusually eager to redeem himself.  There is an uneasy alliance between the two that Dean doesn’t quite trust, but will grudgingly gamble on if it means that they might be able to save Mrs. Tran.    
  
Charlie and Dorothy are staying at the bunker for this leg of the journey.  The ginger has improvements to make to the systems that the Men of Letters created and she is also taking the opportunity to begin to bring Dorothy up to speed on the changes in their own world.  They know that they can’t hide away in Oz and pretend that their home is safe and that progress isn’t marching forward, but it doesn’t mean that Dorothy is completely ready to take on the impending 2014.  Tablet computers fascinate and horrify her in equal measure.  She predates Star Trek by long enough that the reference can't even be made.  
  
Sam runs several errands to nearby hunter-friendly sellers to restock their store of rock salt, holy water, and empty rounds.  He fleshes out the shopping list by adding in a few miscellaneous supplies such as lighter fluid, disposable lighters, and iron blades.  He half-considers making the drive to one of Rufus’ midwest hideaways to see if there is anything worth taking, like a book of lore that might not have made it to Bobby’s collection through his will, but he knows that he’d just be stalling; he already knows the way to Hell and back, and this time they have an archangel.  He knows how to rescue an angel from Hell.  
  
What he doesn’t know and desperately wants to learn is how to rescue an angel from heaven.  Castiel has made inquiries, but no one has even seen Gadreel since his time on Earth.  For all intents and purposes, it is as though the angel has simply vanished.    
  
Sam half-wonders if God just blinked him out of existence.  He remembers a time when he, as a child, had suddenly developed an irrational fear that God would forget him and he would simply stop existing.  That may have been when he first started praying to try to remind the good Lord to think about him.  
  
 _I haven’t forgotten you._  
  
He pulls up in front of the bunker, then climbs out and prepares to continuing loading the car.  He isn’t looking forward to having a back seat full of an intense prophet and a reformed demon.  It sounds like a punchline, and as he walks back to the Impala with a duffle bag slung over each shoulder he tries to come up with a fitting lead-in to the joke.  
  
He stops when he sees a blond man standing beside the car, watching him.    
  
He doesn’t recognize him, but he knows him.  He recognizes the way that he holds his body and the tilt of his head.  He knows the intensity in his eyes, even if he’s never seen them looking out of that face before.  
  
With a short, disbelieving cry, he drops the bags in the snow and rushes forward to grab the other man in an embrace. He is tall, only slightly shorter than Sam himself, and sturdy.  In the hunter’s hold, he is momentarily stiff before he puts his arms around him and pulls him tightly against himself.  
  
“Gadreel,” Sam breathes disbelievingly, just holding him for a moment. 

“Sam, I’m sorry, I had a long way to travel-”  
  
“I don’t care…”  
  
He realizes suddenly that the man in his arms is just that - Gadreel is cold and aching from exposure to the elements, fatigued from lack of food, and red-eyed from unaccustomed human emotion. His cheek is cold against Sam’s and there is winter color in his cheeks and nose.  
  
“I’m not what I was,” he says apologetically, his cadence the same even with a new voice.  
  
“Doesn’t matter, let’s get you inside and warm you up.  You need to eat something and you’re probably dehydrated… did you walk…?  How did you get here?”  Sam asks, pulling him back toward the bunker, “How did you get away from heaven, and why aren’t you an angel now?  Can we get your grace back?  Do you even want it?”  
  
The former angel reels under the barrage of questions, gripping the back of Sam’s coat with both hands.  He closes his eyes and leans forward again, leaning his cold forehead against the hunter’s tiredly.  He’s too worn out to formulate proper answers, though he's spent most of his cold travel time trying to think of what to say when they met.  Finding Sam, making his way back to the bunker on foot and by hitchhiking had been his task for the better part of a week.  
  
Sam takes a deep breath, rubbing his gloved hand against the back of Gadreel’s shoulder, “Okay, yeah.  Let’s get you inside.”  
  
Without thinking, he leans forward and kisses the angel - who he will always think of as an angel because that is how he first knew him - with simple happiness.  The blond makes a quiet sound, leaning into the gesture with a quiet, heart-felt eagerness.  
  
The contact, though brief, warms him slightly.  When Sam pulls back, Gadreel nods and agrees, “Yes, inside.”  
  
They decide to swap Castiel in for Sam on their excursion, at least until Gadreel recovers from his exposure to the elements.  Rolling his eyes, Dean says that he can’t have shotgun mooning about and missing shots because he’s worried about his sick boyfriend, and that is when Sam finally lets loose with a pointed comment about Dean and Cas having a hotel room to themselves.    
  
After a rough, brotherly tussle in the snow culminating in Dean grinding Sam’s face into the snow while Sam blindly stuffed snow down the neck of his jacket, the issue seems to be at least partially resolved.  Red-faced and frozen-fingered, both brothers warm up and change clothes before Dean and his entourage prepare again to leave.  
  
They return to find the other two brothers in quiet conversation.  Castiel meets Dean’s eyes evenly and says by way of explanation, “His loss of grace is permanent; God forgave him his mistake, but said that he would do his penance in the form of a mortal life spent enduring the troubles that man suffers because of him.”  
  
“So he’s just a guy, basically.”  
  
They stare at him for a moment, marvelling at how simply Dean perceived the issue.  
  
“Yes,” Cas affirms.  
  
Dean shrugs.  He is not ready to be face to face with the angel-turned-human; he hasn't gotten over his discomfort with the possession or the related issues.  He's trying to be casual though, and trying to man up and deal.  Gadreel, obviously, won't be possessing anyone else.  The issue is what he might already know from his time knocking around in Dean's skull, what insecurities he can see just looking at the hunter; not knowing makes it worse, but there's no way to ask.  It's hard to be face to face with someone who has handled his soul, someone who isn't Castiel.

“Well, he can just be a guy who’s working on stopping Apocalypse Round 15 then.  Sam can teach him to field strip a rifle and maybe start teaching him how to shoot while we’re gone.  We’ve got a trunk full of angel blades, so he can learn to be handy with one of those.  You can probably teach him - I’ve seen how you handle yours.”  
  
It’s all very businesslike; Dean is obviously trying to ignore his own history with the former angel and any lingering awkwardness over the fact that he caught him kissing his baby brother in the snow.  Some resentment over his possession would undoubtedly need to be addressed in the future, Castiel realizes, but for now he just picks up Dean’s heavy bag of weaponry and nods in agreement, accepting his lover’s subtle compliment.  
  
Dean nods to Gadreel, then reached over to hug his brother quickly, “Stay outta trouble, you hear?  Call me if you hear anything or if anything changes.  We're gonna find Mrs. Tran, then we'll bring her back here.”  
  
Sam hugs him back, holding on for just a half-second longer than Dean seemed to want to give him.  He doesn’t want to stay behind, but he trusts that the archangel on Dean’s shoulder will take care of him.  He looks at their small group where they are all bunched together in the vestibule in preparation for departure.  
  
The new Winchester family is an assortment of mismatched pieces - a resurrected prophet, a hacker, a female action hero, a former demon, a depowered angel, a brand new archangel, the sword of Michael, and Lucifer’s strong-minded vessel.  Sam has doubts about all of them, which will survive these next months, which will break under the strain, which will surprise them all with their strength.    
  
As the Impala disappears down the snowy road, blasting out a parting note on the old horn, Sam knows that he would do anything for this new family.  And strangely, for the first time he feels that everything might be all right.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me through this one. :) Thank you for your support throughout! I ended up leaving some plot threads unresolved because I am thinking of writing some version of an AU 10th season over the summer! 
> 
> Confession time - I ended up deviating from my original outline. I had originally planned for everything to lead to a hell shutting down with angels inside, heaven's lights going out, and pandemonium on earth... which would have triggered cosmic reboot and a HUGE deus ex machina where God basically showed up and was like "Hey WTF guys" and set everything to rights. But when I told a friend of mine this plan, she was like "Oh. That's disappointing." So I ended up reworking starting around chapter 11 to let the good guys take a more active role in their resolution, though I still just really wanted Cas to finally get some Godly contact. I hope that the final piece still came together coherently.
> 
> There's still about 5 days left till the hiatus ends, so I'm going to try to write a few drabbles to follow The Opposite of Fall. I've had a few requests for a non-angsty Destiel sex scene, so I'll probably post one tomorrow (new fic, same series)... and I'd like to explore the Sam/Gadreel dynamic a bit, so there's a drabble there too. If there's something you'd like me to write about (or a plot point I didn't wrap up) me know and I'll try to drabble it.


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